E 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT 




Utile 




tortus 1 . 

THE WHOLE STORY ! 



AS TOLD IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 
JUNE 5, 1876. 

|Uprhttefc Verbatim from % " Congressional lijetorb." 

WITH AN INTRODUCTION, 

^ A i 



PRICE, 15 CENTS, 'ffUg 



Published by 
J. S. CTJSHING A CO., 

115 High Steeet, Boston. 



Copyright, 1884, 
By J. S. CUSHING & CO. 



8. Cubbing & Co., Printers, 115 High Street, Boston. 



INTRODUCTION". 



In the Spring Session of Congress in 1869, a bill before the House 
of Representatives, renewing a land grant to the Little Rock and Fort 
Smith Railroad of Arkansas, was saved from defeat by Mr. Blaine, 
then Speaker of the House, in the manner described by himself in his 
letter to Mr. Fisher of Oct. 4, 1869. [See page 13.] 

Almost immediately afterwards Mr. Blaine was offered by two of 
his friends (Caldwell and Fisher), who had control of the Little Rock 
Road, such a participation in the enterprise as was (to quote Mr. 
Blaine himself) "in every respect as generous as 1 could expect or 
desire." Mr. Blaine expressed himself "more than satisfied," thought 
the offer " a most liberal proposition," that he should " not be a dead 
head in the enterprise," and that there were "various channels" in 
which he knew he could " be useful." [See letters of June 29 and July 
2, 1869, page 15.] 

There is no doubt that Mr. Blaine became in the summer or fall of 
1869 a bondholder in the Little Rock Road, but precisely on what 
terms he obtained his bonds is a contested point. Mr. Blaine himself 
declares that he paid the full market value for every one of them. 
According to Mr. Mulligan, who was Mr. Fisher's bookkeeper at that 
time, he obtained them under very different and very much more 
favorable conditions. [See foot-note K, page 24, and what follows Xo. 
10 in Mr. Mulligan's memorandum on page 19.] 

In the letters of June 29 and July 2 it appears that Mr. Blaine was ' 
then waiting for " a definite proposition " from Mr. Caldwell. When 
October came he was still waiting, and it was in this expectant state 
of mind that he wrote the two letters to Mr. Fisher dated Oct. 4, 1869. 
[See pages 13, 14.] That he succeeded finally in coming to terms with 
Mr. Caldwell is shown by the letter of May 14, 1870. [See page 16.] 

Without attempting here to trace further the railroad speculations 
of Mr. Blaine, we proceed to state the circumstances immediately 
leading to the following dramatic scene in the House of Representa- 
tives. 



iv 



INTRODUCTION". 



In the spring of 1876, when Mr. Blaine was a candidate for the 
Republican nomination for President, unpleasant rumors of his con- 
nection with certain railroad transactions were in circulation, and be- 
came at last so pressing that he thought it necessary to meet them by 
a personal explanation in the House of Representatives. 

He made this explanation April 24. He stated in explicit terms that 
a charge against him had been made to this effect : " that a certain 
draft was negotiated at the house of Morton, Bliss, & Co., in 1871, 
through Thomas A. Scott, then President of the Union Pacific Rail- 
road Company, for the sum of §64,000, and that 875,000 of bonds of 
the Little Rock and Fort Smith Railroad Company were pledged as 
collateral ; that the Union Pacific Company paid the draft and took 
up the collateral ; that the cash proceeds of it went to me, and that 
I had furnished or sold or in some way conveyed or transferred to 
Thomas A. Scott these Little Rock and Fort Smith bonds which had 
been used as collateral ; that the bonds had in reality belonged to me 
or some friend or constituent of mine for whom I was acting. " Mr. 
Blaine then proceeded to deny this charge absolutely and entirely, 
declaring it to be "without one particle of foundation in fact, and 
without a tittle of evidence to substantiate it." In support of his denial 
he read letters from Thomas A. Scott and from Sidney Dillon who 
succeeded Mr. Scott as President of the Union Pacific Railroad. He 
admitted, however, that he had been the owner of bonds in the Little 
Rock and Fort Smith Road in 1869, but declared that he had paid the 
full market price for them, and that he had lost over 8*20,000 by the 
transaction. He said further that -''as to the question of the propriety 
involved in a member of Congress holding an investment of this kind, 
it must be remembered that the lands were granted to the State of 
Arkansas and not to the Railroad Company, and that the company 
derived its life, franchise, and value wholly from the State." And 
later he repeated that "the Little Rock Road derived all that it had 
from th<* State of Arkansas and not from Congress." He denied once 
more the charge against him by declaring that " the story of my re- 
ceiving 964,000 or any other sum of money, or other thing of value, 
from the Union Pacific Railroad Company, directly or indirectly, or in 
any form, for myself or for another, is absolutely disproved by the 
mod conclusive testimony"; and closed by saying, "I have never 
done anything in my public career for which T could be put to the 
faintest blusli in any presence, or for which I cannot answer to my 
constituents, my conscience, and the great Searcher of hearts." 



INTRODUCTION. 



V 



This explanation was accepted at the time by the public generally, 
in the absence of further evidence, as a satisfactory answer to the 
charge. Further evidence, however, of a startling nature was sup- 
plied by the investigation of a committee of the House. In the 
course of this investigation one of the witnesses, Mr. Mulligan, hap- 
pened to mention that he had in his possession certain letters written 
by Mr. Blaine to Warren Fisher, Jr. (see page 31). On learning 
this fact, Mr. Blaine proceeded to gain possession of these letters in 
the manner described on pages 32-34. He refused to deliver the 
letters into the hands of the investigating committee, but formed the 
bold design of meeting the public feeling against him by reading the 
letters, or, as some maintain, only a portion of the letters, before the 
House. This design he carried out on Monday, June 5, 1876, as 
described in the following pages. 

It will be seen that there are references in some of the letters to an 
interest in the Northern Pacific Railroad. As throwing further light 
on this part of the subject, we print here the following interesting 
letter from Mr. Blaine to Mr. Fisher which does not appear among 
those read by Mr. Blaine in the House. 

Augusta, Me., Xovember 25, 1870. 
My Dear Mr. Fisher : A year ago and more I spoke to you 
about purchasing an interest in the Xorthern Pacific Railroad for 
yourself and any you might choose to associate with yourself. The 
matter passed by without my being able to control it, and nothing 
more was said about it. Since then the Jay Cooke contract has been 
perfected, the additional legislation has been obtained, and 230 miles 
of the road are well-nigh completed, and the whole line will be pushed 
forward rapidly. By a strange revolution of circumstances I am 
again able to control an interest, and if you desire it you can have it. 
The whole road is divided into twenty-four shares, of which Jay 
Cooke & Co. have twelve. The interest I speak of is one-half of one- 
twenty-fourth, or one one-hundred-and-ninety-second of the entire 
franchise, being that proportion of the eighty-one millions of stock 
that are being divided as the road is built, and a like proportion of 
the Land Company stock that is formed to take and dispose of the 
52,000,000 acres of land covered by their grant as amended by their 
law of last session. The amount of stock which this 1-192 would 
have in the end would be about 8125,000, and the number of acres of 
land it represents is nearly 275,000. The road is being built on the 
7.30 bonds, 825,000 to the mile, which Jay Cooke takes at 90. Instead 
of mortgaging the land, they make a stock company for its ownership, 
dividing it pro rata among the holders of the franchise. The whole 
thing can be had for 825,000, which is less than one-third of what 
some other sales of small interest have gone at. I do not suppose you 
would care to invest the whole $25,000. I thought for a small flyer 



vi 



INTRODUCTION. 



eight or ten of you in Boston might take it — $2,500 each. For i 
thus invested you would get ultimately $42,000 stock and the avails 
of some 27,000 acres of land. Five of you at $5,000 each would have 
a splendid thing of it. 

The chance is a very rare one. I can't touch it, but I obey my first 
and best impulse in offering it to you. 

All such chances as this since Jay Cooke got the road have been 
accompanied with the obligation to take a large amount of the 
bonds at ninety, and hold them not less than three years. I will be 
in Boston Tuesday noon, and will call upon you. Of course if you 
don't want it, let it pass. You will receive an immediate issue of 
stock to a considerable amount, and certificates of land stock also. 
Of course, in conferring with others, keep my name quiet, mentioning 
it to no one unless to Mr. Caldwell. I write under the presumption 
that you have returned, but I have heard nothing. Yours truly, 

J. G. Blaine. 

This offer was accepted by Fisher, as appears from the following 
receipt : — 

Received of Warren Fisher, Jr., $25,000 in trust, in consideration 
of which I am to deliver to said Fisher properly authenticated certifi- 
cates of an interest in the North Pacific Railway Company, equivalent 
to one-eighth part of one of the twenty-four principal shares in which 
the franchise stock of said company are divided ; certificates to be in 
the name of Elisha Atkins. 

Witness my hand, 

James G. Blaine. 



) 



ME. BLAINE 

AND THE 

"MULLIGAN LETTERS." 



Mr. Blaine. If the morning hour has expired, I will rise to a 
question of privilege. 

The Speaker {pro tempore). The morning hour has expired. 

Mr. Blaine. Mr. Speaker, on the 2d day of May this resolution 
was passed by the House : 

Whereas it is publicly alleged, and is not denied by the officers of the Union 
Pacific Railroad Company, that that corporation did, in the year 1871 or 1872, 
become the owner of certain bonds of the Little Rock and Fort Smith Railroad 
Company, for which bonds the said Union Pacific Railroad Company paid a 
consideration largely in excess of their actual or market value, and that the 
board of directors of said Union Pacific Railroad Company, though urged, have 
neglected to investigate said transaction: Therefore, 

Be it resolved, That the Committee on the Judiciary be instructed to inquire 
if any such transaction took place, and, if so ; what were the circumstances 
and inducements thereto, from what person or persons said bonds were ob- 
tained and upon what consideration, and whether the transaction was from 
corrupt design or in furtherance of any corrupt object ; and that the committee 
have power to send for persons and papers. 

That resolution on its face, and in its fair intent, was obviously 
designed to find out whether any improper thing had been done by 
the Union Pacific Railroad Company; and of course, incidentally 
thereto, to find out with whom the transaction was made. The gen- 
tleman who offered that resolution offered it when I was not in the 
House, and my colleague (Mr. Frye), after it was objected to, went 
to the gentleman and stated that he would have no objection to it, as 
he knew I would not have if I were present in the House. The gen- 
tleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Tarbox), to whom I refer, took 
especial pains to say to my colleague that the resolution was not in 
any sense aimed at me. The gentleman will pardon me if I say that 
I had a slight incredulity upon that assurance given by him to my 
colleague. 

Xo sooner was the sub-committee designated than it became entirely 
obvious that the resolution was solely and only aimed at me. I think 
there had not been three questions asked until it was obvious that the 



MR. BLAINE AND THE 



investigation was to be a personal one upon me, and that the Union 
Pacific Railroad or any other incident of the transaction was second- 
ary, insignificant, and unimportant. I do not complain of that ; I do 
not say that I had any reason to complain of it. If the investigation 
was to be made in that personal sense, I was ready to meet it. 

The gentleman on whose statement the accusation rested, Mr. Har- 
rison, was first called. He stated what he knew from rumor. Then 
there were called Mr. Eollins, Mr. Morton, and Mr. Millard from 
Omaha, a Government director of the Union Pacific road, and finally 
Thomas A. Scott. The testimony was completely and conclusively in 
disproof of the charge that there was any possibility that I could have 
had anything to do with the transaction. 

I expected (and I so stated to the gentleman from Virginia, the 
honorable chairman of the sub-committee) that I should have an early 
report ; but the case was prolonged and prolonged and prolonged ; 
and when last week the witnesses had seemed to be exhausted, I was 
somewhat surprised to be told that the committee would now turn to 
investigate a transaction of the ^Northern Pacific Railroad Company 
on a newspaper report that there had been some effort on my part 
with a friend in Boston to procure for him a share in that road, which 
effort had proved abortive, the money having been returned. I asked 
the honorable gentleman from Virginia on what authority he made 
that investigation — not that T cared about it ; I begged him to be 
assured I did not; and the three witnesses that he called could not 
have been more favorable to me within any possibility. But I wanted 
to know on what authority I was to be arraigned before the country 
upon an investigation of that kind ; and a resolution offered in this 
House on the 31st of January by the gentleman from California (Mr. 
Luttrell) was read as the authority for investigating that little trans- 
action in Boston. I ask the House to bear with me while 1 read a 
somewhat lengthy resolution : 

Whereas the several railroad companies hereinafter named, to wit, the 
Northern Pacific, the Kansas Pacific, the Union Pacific, the Central Branch of 
the Union Pacific, the Western Pacific, the Southern Pacific, the Sioux City 
and Pacific, the Northern Pacific, the Texas and Pacific, and all Pacific roads 
or branches to which bonds or other subsidies have been granted by the Gov- 
ernment, have received from the United States, under the act of Congress of 
July 1, 1862, the act March 3, 1874, and the several acts amendatory thereof, 
money subsidies amounting to over 364,000,000, land subsidies amounting to 
over 220,000,000 acres of the public domain, bond subsidies amounting to 

3 , and interest amounting to 8 , to aid in the construction of their 

several roads ; and whereas it is but just and proper that the Government and 
people should understand the status of such roads and the disposition made by 
such companies in the construction of their roads of the subsidies granted by 
the Government: Therefore, 

Be it r< solved^ That the Judiciary Committee be, and are hereby instructed 
and authorized to inquire into and report to this House, first, whether the 
several railroad companies hereinbefore named, or any of them, have, in the 
construction of their railroads and telegraph lines, fully complied with the 
requirements of law granting money, bonds, and land subsidies to aid such 
companies in the construction of their railroads and telegraph lines; second, 
whether the several railroad companies or any of them have formed within 
themselves corporate or construction companies for the purpose of subletting 



" MULLTGAN LETTERS." 



3 



to snch corporate or construction companies contracts for building and equip- 
ping said roads or any portion thereof, and, if so, whether the money, land, 
and bond subsidies granted by the Government have been properly applied by 
said companies or any of them in the construction of their road or roads; 
third, whether the several railroad companies or any of them have forfeited 
their land subsidies by failing to construct and equip their road or roads or 
any portion of them as required by law; and, fourth, that, for the purpose of 
making a thorough investigation of the several Pacific railroads or any of 
them, the Judiciary Committee shall have full power to send for persons and 
papers, and, after thorough investigation shall have been made, shall report to 
this House such measure or bill as will secure to the Government full indem- 
nity for all losses occasioned by fraudulent transactions or negligence on the 
part of said railroad companies or any of them, or on the part of any corporate 
or construction company, in the expenditures of moneys, bonds, or interest, or 
in the disposition of land donated by the Government for the construction of 
the roads or any of them or any portion thereof, and for the nonpayment of 
interest lawfully due the Government, or any other claim or claims the 
United States may have against such railroad company or companies. 

Now, that resolution embraces a very wide scope. It undoubtedly 
embraces a great many things which it is highly proper for the gov- 
ernment to look into ; but I think the gentleman from California who 
offered that resolution will be greatly surprised to find that the first 
movement made under it to investigate what the Northern Pacific 
Railroad Company has done was to bring the whole force of that res- 
olution to find out the circumstances of a little transaction in Boston 
which never became a transaction at all.. I asked the gentleman from 
Virginia how he deduced his power. Well, he said it would take 
three months to go through the whole matter, but in about three 
months it would reach this point, and that he might as well begin on 
me right there. Well, he began ; and three witnesses testified pre- 
cisely what the circumstances were. I had no sooner got through 
with that, than I was advised that in another part of the Capitol, 
without the slightest notice in the world being given to me, with no 
monition, no warning to me, I was being arraigned before a commit- 
tee known as the Real Estate Pool Committee, which was originally 
organized to examine into the affairs of the estate of Jay Cooke & 
Co., and whose powers were enlarged on the third day of April by the 
following 1 " resolution : — 

Whereas, on the 24th day of January, A. d. 1876, the House adopted the fol- 
lowing resolution : 

"Resolved, That a special committee of five members of this House, to be 
selected by the Speaker, be appointed to inquire into the nature and history 
of said real estate pool and the character of said settlement, with the amount 
of property involved, in which Jay Cooke & Co. were interested, and the 
amount paid or to be paid in settlement, with power to send for persons and 
papers and report to this House: " Therefore, 

Be it resolved, That said committee be further authorized and directed to 
likewise investigate any and all matters touching the official misconduct of 
any officer of the Government of the United States or of any member of the 
present Congress of the United States which may come to the knowledge of 
said committee : Provided, That this resolution shall not affect any such 
"natter now being investigated by any other committee under authority of 



4 



MB. BLAINE AND THE 



either House of Congress ; and for this purpose said committee shall have the 
same powers to send for persons and papers as conferred by said original 
resolution. 

They began an investigation, which I am credibly informed, and I 
think the chairman of that committee will not deny, was specifically 
aimed at me. I had no notice of it, not the remotest; no opportunity 
to be confronted with witnesses. I had no idea that any such thing 
was going on, not the slightest. So that on three distinct charges I 
was being investigated at the same time, and having no opportunity 
to meet any one of them ; and I understand, though I was not pres- 
ent, that the gentleman from Virginia has this morning introduced a 
fourth, to find out something about the Kansas Pacific Railroad, a 
transaction fifteen years old if it ever existed, and has summoned 
n umerous witnesses . 

Mr. Hunton. What was the statement the gentleman just made? 
I did not fully understand it. 

Mr. Blaine. That an investigation has been set on foot by the 
gentleman, aimed at me, in regard to the Kansas Pacific Railroad, 
and that witnesses have been summoned on that question, the tran- 
saction out of which it grew being fifteen years old. 

Now, I say — and I state it boldly — that, under these general 
powers to investigate Pacific Railroads and their transactions, the 
whole enginery of this committee is aimed personally at me ; and I 
want that to be understood by the country. I have no objection to 
it ; but I want you by name to organize a committee to investigate 
James G. Blaine. I want to meet the question squarely. That is 
the whole aim and intent ; and the gentleman from Virginia and the 
gentleman from Kentucky {Mr. Knott) will pardon me for saying that 
when this investigation was organized I felt that such was the whole 
purpose and object. I will not further make personal references ; for 
1 do not wish to stir up any blood on this question , but ever since a 
certain debate here in January it has been known that there are gen 
tlemen in this hall whose feelings were peculiarly exasperated toward 
me. And I beg the gentleman from Kentucky, the chairman of the 
Judiciary Committee, to remember that when this matter affecting 
me went to his committee, while there were seven democratic mem- 
bers of that committee, he took as the majority of the sub-committee 
the two who were from the South and had been in the rebel army. 

Mr. Knott. Will the gentleman allow T me one word ? 

Mr. Blaine. After a moment ; I have not a great deal of time. 

Mr. Knott. As the gentleman has made an insinuation, I prefer 
to answer it now. 

Mr. Blaine. Very well. 

Mr. Knott. These railroad investigations were referred to that 
committee before I ever heard the gentleman's name insinuated in 
connection with them ; and I will say furthermore that 1 had no act 
or part in instituting any investigation implicating the gentleman at 
all. 

Mr. Blaine. Then when the investigation began, the gentleman 



" MULLIGAN LETTERS." 



5 



from Virginia who conducted it insisted under that resolution, which 
was obviously on its face limited to the seventy-five thousand dollar 
transaction — the transaction with the Union Pacific Railroad — he 
insisted on going into all the affairs of the Fort Smith Railroad as 
incidental thereto, and pursued that to such an extent that finally 
I had myself through my colleague, Mr. Frye, to take an appeal to 
the whole committee, and the committee decided that the gentleman 
had no right to go there. But when he came back and resumed the 
examination, he began again exactly in the same way, and was stopped 
there and then by my colleague who sits in front, not as my attorney, 
but as my friend. 

When the famous witness Mulligan came here loaded with informa- 
tion in regard to the Fort Smith road, the gentleman from Virginia 
drew out what he knew had no reference whatever to the question of 
investigation. He then and there insisted on all of my private mem- 
oranda being allowed to be exhibited by that man in reference to 
business that had no more connection, no more relation, no more 
to do with that investigation than with the North Pole. 

And the gentleman tried his best, also, though I believe that has 
been abandoned, to capture, and use, and control my private corres- 
pondence. This man had selected, out of correspondence running over 
a great many years, letters which he thought would be peculiarly dam- 
aging to me. He came here loaded with them. He came here for a 
sensation. He came here primed. He came here on that particular 
errand. I was advised of it, and I obtained those letters under cir- 
cumstances which have been notoriously scattered throughout the 
United States, and are known to everybody. T have them. T claim T 
have the entire right to those letters, not only by natural right, but 
upon all the precedents and principles of law, as the man who held 
those letters m possession held them wrongfully. The committee that 
-attempted to take those letters from tfiat man for use against me pro- 
ceeded wrongfully. They proceedecHn all boldness to a most defiant 
violation of the ordinary private and personal rights which belong to 
every American citizen, and I was willing to stand and meet the J udi- 
ciary Committee on this floor. I wanted them to introduce it. I 
wanted the gentleman from Kentucky and the gentleman from Vir- 
ginia to introduce that question upon this floor, but they did not do it. 

Mr. Knott (in his seat). I know you did. 

Mr. Blaine. Very well. 

Mr. Knott. I know you wanted to be made a martyr of. [Laughter.] 
Mr. Blaine. And you did not want to, and there is the difference. 
[Laughter and applause.] I go a little further : you did not dare to. 
Mr. Knott. We will talk about that hereafter. 

Mr. Blaine. I wanted to meet that question. I wanted to invoke 
all the power you had in this House on that question. 

Mr. Hamilton (of New Jersey). I rise to a question of order. Is 
this language parliamentary? 

Mr. Blaine. Yes; entirely so. [Laughter.] 

Mr. Hamilton (of New 7 Jersey). T do not ask the gentleman. I ask 
the Speaker. I call the gentleman to order. 



6 



MR. BLAINE AND THE 



The Speaker (pro tempore). The gentleman will state his point of 
order. 

Mr. Hamilton (of New Jersey). I want to know whether it is in 
order for one gentleman on this floor to say to another he dare not do 
so and so ? 

The Speaker (pro tempore) . The gentleman from New Jersey calls 
the gentleman from Maine to order, and under the rules the gentle- 
man from Maine will be seated, and if there be objectionable words, 
they will be taken down. 

Mr. Kasson. I wish to say the point of order is simply to the use 
of the second person, and I hope gentlemen on both sides will use the 
third person. 

Mr. Blaine. I did not. 

Mr. Kasson. You said "you." 

The Speaker (pro tempore). The Chair will say to the gentlemen 
who have the privilege of the House, that this display of cheering is 
entirely out of order. 

Mr. Blaine. It never ought to be done, and never has been done so 
much as during this Congress. 

The Speaker (pro tempore). The Chair will enforce the order, and 
the doorkeepers will assist the Chair, and, if necessary, the Sergeant- 
at-arms under the rules will assist the doorkeepers. The gentleman 
from Maine will now proceed in order. 

Mr. Blaine. I repeat, the Judiciary Committee, I understand, have 
abandoned that issue against me. I stood up and declined, not only 
on the conclusion of my own mind, but by eminent legal advice. I 
was standing behind the rights which belong to every American citi- 
zen, and if they w T anted to treat the question in my person anywhere 
in the legislative halls or judicial halls, I was ready. Then there 
went forth everywhere the idea and impression that because I would 
not permit that man, or any man whom I could prevent, from holding 
as a menace over my head my private correspondence, there must be 
something in it most deadly and destructive to my reputation. I 
would like any gentleman on this floor, — and all gentlemen on this 
floor are presumed to be men of affairs, whose business has been 
varied, whose intercourse has been large, — I would like any gentle- 
man co stand up here and tell me that he is willing and ready to have 
his private correspondence scanned over and made public for the last 
eight or ten years. I would like any gentleman to say that. Does it 
imply guilt ? Does it imply wrong-doing ? Does it imply any sense 
of weakness that a man will protect his private correspondence? No, 
sir; it is the first instinct to do it, and it is the last outrage upon any 
man to violate it. 

Now, Mr. Speaker, I say that I have defied the power of the House 
to compel me to produce those letters. I speak with all respect to 
this House. I know its powers, and I trust I respect them. But I 
say this House has no more power to order what shall be done or not 
done with my private correspondence than it has with what I shall do 
in the nurture and education of my children ; not a particle. The 
right is as sacred in the one case as it is in the other. But, sir, hav- 



"MULLIGAN LETTERS." 



7 



ing vindicated that right, standing by it, ready to make any sacrifice 
in the defense of it, here and now, if any gentleman wants to take 
issue with me on behalf of this House, I am ready for any extremity 
of contest or conflict in behalf of so sacred a right. And while I am 
so, I am not afraid to show the letters. Thank God Almighty, I am 
not ashamed to show them. There they are (holding up a package of 
letters). There is the very original package. And with some sense 
of humiliation, with a mortification that I do not pretend to conceal, 
with a sense of outrage which I think any man in my position would 
feel, I invite the confidence of 44,000,000 of my countrymen while I 
read those letters from this desk. [Applause.*] 

The Speaker (pro tempore). The doorkeeper will enforce the rule. . 

Mr. Blaine. 1 beg gentlemen who are my friends to make no mani- 
festation. 

The Speaker (pro tempore). The Chair has directed the doorkeepers 
to enforce the rule, and to remove from the hall persons who are not 
entitled to its privileges who are making these manifestations. 

Mr. Kelley. I desire to say, Mr. Speaker, that so far as my obser- 
vation extends, the applause was within the bar of the House. 

The Speaker (pro tempore). The doorkeepers are authorized to 
remove from the Hall any persons who violate its privileges. 

Mr. Blaine. Xow as regards many of these letters I have not the 
slightest feeling in reading them. Some of them will require a little 
explanation. Some of them may possibly, as I have said, involve a 
feeling of humiliation. But I would a great deal rather take that 
than take the evil surmises and still more evil inferences which might 
be drawn if I did not act with this frankness. 

The first letter I shall read, marked " private and personal," is as 

follows : [Private and personal.] 

Augusta, Maine, August 31, 1872. 

My Dear Mr. Fisher : I have been absent so much of late that I did not 
receive your last letter until it was several days old. When I last wrote you, 
I was expecting to be in Boston on a political conference about this time, but 
I found it impossible to be there, and it is now impossible for me to leave here 
until after our election, which occurs Monday week, the 9th. I will try to 
meet you at the Parker House on the 10th or 11th, availing myself of the first 
possible moment for that purpose. 

I cannot, however, allow a remark in your letter to pass without comment. 
You say that you have been trying to get a settlement with me for fifteen 
months, you have been trying to induce me to comply with certain demands 
which you made upon me, without taking into account any claims I have of a 
counter kind. 

This does not fill my idea of a settlement, for a settlement must include both 
sides. 

No person could be more anxious for a settlement than I am, and if upon 
our next interview we cannot reach one, why then we try other means. 

But my judgment is that I shall make you so liberal an offer of settlement 
that you cannot possibly refuse it. 

As one of the elements which I wish to take into account is the note of 
810,000 given you in 1863 for Spencer stock, I desire that you will furnish me 
with the" items of interest on that note. My impression is that when that note 
was consolidated into the large note, which you will still hold, that you did 
not charge me full interest, possibly omitting one or two years. 



8 



MR. BLAINE AND THE 



I will be obliged if you will give me information on this point, for I intend 
to submit to you a full and explicit basis of settlement, and in making it up it 
is necessary that I should have this information. Please send it as promptly 
as you may be able to give it to me. 

In haste, very truly yours, 

J. G. BLAINE. 

Warren Fisher, Jr., Esq. 

There is an allusion there to Spencer Stock. I took this letter up first 
because I wish to make an explanation as to that. In the month of 
November, 1861, I was summoned to Boston, by a telegram, to meet 
Mr. Fisher and another gentleman on some urgent business. I imme- 
diately responded. On getting there I found that they were the pro- 
prietors of a newly-invented rifle. The other gentleman w T as Mr. 
Ward Cheney, of Connecticut, recently deceased, well known for his 
eminence in the silk manufacture, and a gentleman of great wealth 
and high character. One of the ingenious mechanics in his employ 
named Spencer had invented a repeating rifle. It had been tested, 
in various private ways, but it had not received the official sanction 
of the Government. They had employed various persons to come to 
Washington during the summer of 1831, the first of the war ; but 
these various agents reported, and these gentlemen so reported to me, 
that what they called a gun-ring in Washington were so close and 
were so powerful that they could not get an opportunity to bring that 
new arm to the attention of the Secretary of War, the present venera- 
ble Senator from Pennsylvania, and they asked me if I thought I 
could do it. That was two years and more before I entered Congress. 
I told them that I thought I could. And going back home, and mak- 
ing preparations, I immediately came to Washington, and in a very 
short time I had an interview with Secretary Cameron at the War 
Department. He looked at the gun, was satisfied there was some- 
thing in it, and gave an order to have it tested by the Ordnance 
Bureau. It was thoroughly tested, and in the course of two weeks 
the experiment was so satisfactory that they gave a preliminary order 
for 20,000 rifles. It was, of course, as every gentleman who is 
familiar with the war knows, a most eminent success. It was one of 
the wonderful arms of the war: the Spencer rifle. 

The company immediately proceeded to erect an armory in Boston, 
but, with all that ingenuity and capital could do, they did not pro- 
duce, as every gentleman on this floor who was familiar with the 
operations of the war knows, half as many arms as the service 
wanted. They paid me, not an extravagant, but a moderate fee for 
that service, which I was then as much at liberty to take as any lawyer 
or agent on this floor would be in his private relations at home. I was 
not in Congress, was not nominated to Congress, was not here for two 
years afterward. 

The winter afterward, or next spring, Mr. Fisher and Mr. Cheney, 
both together, offered me $10,000 stock in the concern, and I took it. 
A Member. And paid for it? 

Mr. Blaine. Yes, of course; and paid for it, and owned, and had 
the dividends on it. I made no concealment of it. But I never was 



" MULLIGAN LETTERS." 



9 



at the War Department about it in any shape or form in my life. 
Now, if the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Glover) wants to investi- 
gate that case, I will save him all the trouble. I will just cut that 
short. If he wants the list of stockholders, why they are all private 
citizens, and very respectable ones, and the corporation is dissolved, 
dead, merged in the Winchester Rifle Company. I will give him all 
the trail there is to the whole story, and he can strike it and follow it 
out. The whole story, that I had so much per gun as a royalty of 
any sort, is simply absurd. I was an ordinary stockholder, just as a 
man is in a bank. A gentleman asks me if I paid for this stock. 

I tell him, yes, I did, emphatically. The truth is the Department 
was only too anxious to urge in every direction to have these guns 
manufactured. 

I take these letters up quite miscellaneously. The next is dated 
Augusta, Maine, August 9, 1872 : 

[Personal.] 

Augusta, Maine, August 9, 1872. 

My Dear Mr. Fisher : On ray return home yesterday I found your favor 
of 6th from Stonington, asking for my notes, $6,000, on account. It seems to 
me that a partial settlement of our matter would only lead to future trouble, 
or at all events to a mere postponement of our present difficulties. 

I deem it highly desirable that we should have a conclusive and comprehen- 
sive settlement, and I have been eager for that these many months. 

The account which you stated June 20, 1872, does not correspond precisely 
with the reckoning I have made of the indebtedness on the note you hold. 
You credit me, April 26, 1869, with $12,500 dividend from Spencer Company; 
but there were two subsequent dividends, one of $3,750, the other of $5,800, of 
which no mention is made in your statement, though I received in June, 1870, 
your check for $2,700 or $2,800, which was a part of these dividends, I believe. 
I think my " cash memorandum" of June 25, 1869, for $2,500, with which you 
charge me, represented at the time a part of the dividends ; but being debited 
with that, I am entitled to a credit of the dividend. 

In other words, as I reckon it, there are dividends amounting to $9,550 due 
me, with interest since June, 1870, of which I have received only $2,700 or 
$2,800, entitling me thus to a credit of some $7,500. 

Besides the cash memorandum January 9, 1864, $600, which with interest 
amounts to $904.10, was obviously included in the consolidated note which 
was given to represent all my indebtedness to you, and which you repeatedly 
assured me would be met and liquidated in good time by Spencer dividends. 

You will thus see that we differ materially as to the figures. Of course each 
of us is aiming at precisely the facts of the case, and if I am wrong, please cor- 
rect me. I am sure that you do not desire me to pay a dollar that is not due, 
and I am equally sure that I am more than ready to pay every cent that I owe 
you. 

The Little Rock matter is a perpetual and never-ending embarrassment to 
me. I am pressed daily almost to make final settlement with those who still 
hold the securities, — a settlement I am not able to make until I receive the 
bonds due on your article of agreement with me. That is to me by far the 
most urgent and pressing of all the demands connected with our matters, and 
the one which I think, in all equity, should be first settled, or certainly settled 
as soon as any. 

If the $6,000 cash is so important to you, I would be glad to assist in raising 
the. same for you on your notes, using Little Rock bonds as collateral at same 
rate they are used in Boston, four for one. I think I could get the money here 



10 



ME. BLAINE AND THE 



on four or six months on these terms. If I had the money myself, I would be 
glad to advance it to you, but I am as dry as a contribution-box, borrowing, 
indeed, to defray my campaign expenses. 

Very sincerely yours, 

J. G. BLAINE. 

Warren Fisher, Jr., Esq., Boston. 

That is a very important communication to the American people. 

The next letter I hold is dated Augusta, Maine, July 3, 1872. The 
witness Mulligan said that there was nothing in this about the North- 
ern Pacific Railroad. 

Augusta, Maine, July 3, 1872. 

My Dear Mr. Fisher : I was detained far beyond my expectations in 
Xew York and Pennsylvania, being there quite a week. I was in Boston on 
Monday en route home, but I was so prostrated by the heat that I had no 
strength or energy to call on you. 

It seems to me, as I review and recall our several conferences, that we ought 
not to have any trouble in coming to an easy adjustment, as follows : First, I 
am ready to fulfil the memorandum held by you in regard to the Northern 
Pacific Railroad, as I always have been; second, you are ready to consider the 
land-bonds in my possession as surrendered in payment of the debt to which 
they were originally held as collateral; third, I am ready to pay you the full 
amount of cash due you on memoranda held by you, provided you will pay 
me half the amount of bonds due me on memoranda held by me, the cash to 
be paid and the bonds to be delivered at same time. As to further sale of the 
share in Northern Pacific Railroad, that could be determined afterward. I am 
ready to do all in my power to oblige you in the matter. 

If we can adjust the first and second points herein referred to, the third 
might be left, if you desire it, to the future. 

Hitherto fhave made all the propositions of settlement. If this is not ac- 
ceptable to you, please submit your views of a fair basis in writing. 

Sincerely yours, 

J. G. BLAINE. 

Warren Fisher, Jr., Esq. 

That letter calls for no special comment. Now, any one w 7 ho hears 
this letter will observe that there was a dispute between the parties 
that ran over a very considerable period, and here is a letter in which 
he asks me to get him a letter of credit for 810,000 from Jay Cooke & 
Co., of this city. My answer, dated Washington, D. C, April 26, 1372, 
as follows : 

Washington. April 26. 

My Dear Mr. Fisher: Yours of 24th received. There seems to be one 
great error of fact under which you are laboring in regard to my ability to 
comply with your request about the 310,000 letter of credit. I would gladly 
get it for you if I were able; but I have not the means. I have no power of 
getting a letter of credit from Jay Cooke except by paying the money for it, 
and the money I have not got, and have no means of getting it. You ask me 
to do therefore what is simply impossible. Nothing would give me more 
pleasure than to serve you if I were able ; but my losses in the Fort Smith 
affair have entirely crippled me and deranged all my finances. You would, 
I know, be utterly amazed if you could see the precise experience I have had 
in that matter. Very bitter, I assure you. Among other things, I still owe 
nearly all of the 825,000 which I delivered to Mr. Pratt, and this is most 
harassing and embarrassing to me. 

If you will give me the $70,500 of bonds which I propose to throw off as 
payment of the notes which you say I owe you, I will gladly get your ten-thou- 



"MULLIGAN LETTEES." 



11 



sand-dollar letter of credit; but if I release those bonds to you, as I propose, 
you can do the same for yourself. 

I am at a loss to know what you mean by your repeated phrase that il I have 
denied every thing" What have I denied f I do not so much as understand 
what you mean, and would be glad to have you explain. 

You reject the name of Ward Cheney as a friendly referee. Please suggest 
a name yourself of some one known to both of us. I mean for you to suggest 
a name in case you do not accept my basis of settlement proposed in my last 
letter preceding this. 

Yours, very truly, 

J. G. BLAINE. 

Warren Fisher, Jr., Esq. 

When do you propose to sail for Europe ? 

Some of these letters were written by the gentleman who sits on my 
right and who was my clerk during my Speakership, acting as my 
amanuensis. 

Here is a letter dated April 22 d, 1872, again showing the accuracy of 
the witness, Mulligan, w T ho said that it contained no allusion to the 
Northern Pacific Railroad : 

Washington, D. C, April 22, 1872. 
My Dear Mr. Fisher : Your brief note received. I do not know what 
you mean by my "not mentioning Northern Pacific and denying everything 
else." 

You have my obligation to deliver to you a specified interest in Northern 
Pacific which I was to purchase for you, and in which I never had a penny's 
interest — direct or indirect. Some months ago you wrote me (twice) declar- 
ing that you would not receive the share, but demanding the return of the 
money. This was impossible, and I therefore could do nothing but wait. 

Nothing I could write would make my obligation plainer than the memo- 
randum you hold. Nothing you could write would change my obligation 
under that memorandum. 

The matters between us are all perfectly plain and simple, and I am ready 
to settle them all comprehensively and liberally. I am not willing to settle 
those that benefit you and leave to the chances of the future those that benefit 
me. 

I am willing to forego and give up a great deal for the sake of a friendly 
settlement, and I retain a copy of this letter as evidence of the spirit of the 
offer I make. I think, if we cannot settle ourselves, a friendly reference would 
be the best channel, and I propose Mr. Ward Cheney, who stands nearer to 
you certainly than he does to me. If this name does not suit you, please 
suggest one yourself. 

Very sincerely yours, 

J. G. BLAINE. 

Warren Fisher, Jr. 

Here is one dated Washington, May 26, 1864. 

This correspondence, you will observe, stretches over a considerable 
march of time, and this refers to the Spencer Eifle Company. 

Washington, May 26, 1864. 

My Dear Sir: Your favor received. I am very glad, all things considered, 
that the Government has accepted your proposition to take all your manu- 
facture till first of September, 1865. It gives a straight and steady business 
for the company for a good stretch of time. 

In regard to the tax provision you can judge for yourself, as I send here- 
with a copy of the bill as reported from the Finance Committee of the Senate 
and now pending in that body — see pages 148, 149, where I have marked. 



12 



MB. BIiATNB AND THE 



In looking over the bill you will please observe that all words in italic letters 
are amendments proposed by the Senate Finance Committee, while all words 
included in brackets are proposed to be struck out by same committee. 

The provision which you inquire about was not in the original bill, but was 
an amendment moved from the Ways and Means Committee by Mr. Kasson. 
of Iowa, to whom I suggested it. It is just and proper in every sense, and 
will affect a good many interests, including your company. Tarn glad to 
hear such good accounts of your progress in the affairs of the company, of 
which I have always been proud to be a member, 

Tell Mr. Welles that his brother has been nominated by the Senate for 
commissary of subsistence, with rank of captain. He will undoubtedly be 
confirmed as soon as his ease can be reached. I will advise as soon as "it is 
done. 

In haste, yours, truly, 
Warren Fisher,. Jr., Esq, J. G. BLAINE. 

I have looked up the provision which the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. 
Kasson) moved, and it was this ; that where the Government had con- 
tracted lor the delivery of a specific article of manufacture, and after 
the contract was made with the Government, an additional rax was 
levied on that article, the Government should stand the loss, and not 
the seller. The gentleman from Iowa understand- the point. 
Mr. Kasson. I do remember the fact of the amen Iment 
Mr. Blaine. It is a very simple matter : in fact, all the manufactur- 
ing interests in the United States where contracts were made were 
interested in it, and where new tax bills were passed every few 
months. 

The next letter to which I refer was dated Washington. District of 
Columbia, April 18, 1872. 

This is the letter in which Mulligan says and puts down in his 
abstract that I admitted the sixty-four thousand dollar sale of bonds: 

Washington, DC, April 18, 1872. 

M.Y Dear Mr. Fisher: I answered you very hastily last evening, as you 
said you wished an immediate reply ; and perhaps in my hurry I did nor make 
myself fully understood. 

"You have been for some time laboring under a totally erroneous impression 
in regard to my results in the Fort Smith matter The sales of bonds which 
you spoke of my making, and which you seem to have thought were for my 
bwn "benefit, were entirely otherwise/ I did nut have the money in my pos- 
= e-s:on fortv-ei^h: hours, but paid it over directly to the parti-- whom I tried, 
by every means" in my power, to protect from loss. I am very sure that you 
have little idea of the labors! the losses, the efforts, and the sacrifices I have 
made within the past year to save those innocent persons, who invested on my 
request, from personal loss. 

And I say to you to-night, solemnly, that I am immeasurably worse off than 
if I had never touched the Fort Smith matter. 

The demand you make upon me now is one which I am entirely unable to 
comply with. I cannot do it. It is not in my power You say that " neces- 
sity knows no law/' That applies to me as well as to you. and when I have 
reached the point I am now at. I simply fall ba-k on that law. You are as 
well aware as I am that the bonds are due me under the contract. Could I 
have these. I could adjust many matters not now in my power, and so long as 
this and other matters remain unadjusted between us. I do not recognize the 
equity or the lawfulness of your calling on me for a partial settlement. I am 
ready at any moment to make a full, fair, comprehensive settlement with you 
on the most liberal terms. I will not be exacting or captious or critical, but 



" MULLIGAN LETTERS." 



13 



am ready and eager to make a broad and generous adjustment with you, and 
if we can't agree ourselves, we can select a mutual friend who can easily com- 
promise all points of difference between us. 

You will, I trust, see that I am disposed to meet you in a spirit of friendly 
cordiality, and yet with a sense of self-defence that impels me to be frank and 
expose to you my pecuniary weakness. 

With very kind regards to Mrs. Fisher, I am yours truly, 

W. Fisher, Jr., Esq. J. G. BLAIXE. 

I now pass to a letter dated Augusta, Maine, October 4, 1869, but J 
read these letters now somewhat in their order. Now, to this letter I 
ask the attention of the House. In the March session of 1869, the first 
one at which I was Speaker, the extra session of the Forty-first Con- 
gress, a land grant in the State of Arkansas to the Little Rock road 
was reported. I never remember to have heard of the road until at the 
last night of the session, when it was up here for consideration. The 
gentleman in Boston with whom I had relations did not have anything 
to do w T ith that road for nearly three or four months after that time. 
It is in the light of that statement that I desire that letter read. 

In the autumn, six or eight months afterward, I was looking over 
the Globe, probably with some little curiosity if not pride, to see the 
decisions I had made the first five w^eeks I was Speaker. I had not 
until then recalled this decision of mine, and when I came across it all 
the facts came back to me fresh, and I wrote this letter : 

[Personal.] 

Augusta, Maine, October 4, 1869. 

My Dear Sir : I spoke to you a short time ago about a point of interest 
to your railroad company that occurred at the last session of Congress. 

It was on the last night of the session, when the bill renewing the land 
grant to the State of Arkansas for the Little Rock road was reached, and 
Julian, of Indiana, chairman of the Public Lands Committee, and, by right, 
entitled to the floor, attempted to put on the bill, as an amendment, the Fre- 
mont El Paso scheme, — a scheme probably well known to Mr. Caldwell. The 
House was thin, and the lobby in the Fremont interest had the thing all set 
up, and Julian's amendment was likely to prevail if brought to a vote. Roots 
and the other members from Arkansas, who were doing their best for their 
own bill (to which there seemed to be no objection), were in despair, for it was 
well knpwn that the Senate was hostile to the Fremont scheme, and if the 
Arkansas bill had gone back to the* Senate with Julian's amendment, the 
whole thing would have gone on the table, and slept the sleep of death. 

In this dilemma Roots came to me to know what on earth he could do under 
the rules; for he said it was vital to his constituents that the bill should pass. 
I told him that Julian's amendment was entirely out of order, because not 
germane ; but he had not sufficient confidence in his knowledge of the rules to 
make the point, but he said General Logan was opposed to the Fre'mont 
scheme, and would probably make the point. I sent my page to General Lo- 
gan with the suggestion, and he at once made the point. I could not do other- 
wise than sustain it; and so the bill was freed from the mischievous amend- 
ment moved by Julian, and at once passed without objection. 

At that time I had never seen Mr. Caldwell, but you can tell him that, with- 
out knowing it x I did him a great favor. 

Sincerely yours, 

W. Fisher, Jr., Esq., J. G. BLAINE. 

24 India Street, Boston. 

The amendment referred to in that letter w-ill be found in the Con- 
gressional Globe of the first session of the Forty-first Congress, page 
702. That was before the Boston persons had ever touched the road. 



14 



ME. BLAINE AND THE 



Mr. Julian. I offer the following as an additional section to the bill. 
And then the Clerk read the whole of the El Paso bill. 

Mr. Logan. I rise to a question of order, that this amendment is not 
germane to the pending bill. The bill is to revive a certain land grant and to 
extend the time, while the amendment is another charter for a Pacific railroad, 
authorizing the building of bridges, granting the right of way and everything 
else of the sort. I have been in favor of the pending Arkansas bill, but I do 
not wish to be made to carry this Pacific railroad bill. I do not think the 
amendment is in order. 

The Speaker. The Chair sustains the point of order for two reasons. It is 
expressly prohibited by the rule that where a land grant is under consideration 
another grant to a different company shall be entertained. This is not a 
specific land grant, but it does give away the public land of the United States 
so far as to give the right of way. Again, by the rules, no proposition upon 
a subject different from that under consideration can be admitted under color 
of amendment. 

Therefore the amendment was out of order on either ground. If it 
was a land grant, of course it was out of order, because no land grant 
could be attached to another; and if not a land grant, it was out of 
order, because it was attempting to introduce a different subject under 
color of amendment. Therefore in either way the amendment was 
excluded. 

Mr. Frye. At the time that ruling was made did you have any 
interest whatever in this railroad ? 

Mr. Blaine. Never had, and never expected to have ; never remem- 
bered to have heard of it at that time. 

Mr. Frye. Did you know or expect any personal friend of yours to 
have any interest in that road ? 

Mr. Blaine. None in the world, not the slightest, never had heard 
of it, and I want to say, (and the interruption by my colleague [Mr. 
Frye] enables me to do so,) that wmat I did in that case, and every 
occupant of the chair will bear me out in the statement, is what is 
very frequently done by the Speaker. It was helping a member in 
that direction, nothing in it unusual, nothing extraordinary at all. 
Only by wresting it from its connection and giving it an evil construc- 
tion could I be said at that time to have had the slightest possible 
interest in this road. But I never remembered that night to have 
heard of this road, and it was only three or four months afterward 
that these Boston parties themselves, with whom I was interested, took 
any interest in it. On the same day I wrote another letter : • 

Augusta, October 4, 1869. 

My Dear Mr. Fisher: Find inclosed contracts of the parties named in my 
letter of yesterday. The remaining contracts will be completed as rapidly as 
circumstances will permit. 

I inclose you a part of the Congressional Globe of April 9, containing the 
point to which I referred at some length in my previous letter of to-day. You 
will find it of interest to read it over and see what a narrow escape your bill 
made on that last night of the session. Of course it was my plain duty to 
make the ruling when the point was once raised. If the Arkansas men had 
not, however, happened to come to me when at their wits' end and in despair, 
the bill would undoubtedly have been lost, or at least postponed for a year. I 
thought the point would interest both you and Caldwell, though occurring 
before either of you engaged in the enterprise. 



"MULLIGAN LETTERS." 



15 



I beg you to understand that I thoroughly appreciate the courtesy with 
which you have treated me in this railroad matter ; but your conduct towards 
me in business matters has always been marked by unbounded liberality in 
past years, and of course I have naturally come to expect the same of yhu now. 
You urge me to make as much as 1 fairly can out of the arrangement into 
which we have entered. It is natural that I should do my utmost to this end. 
1 am bothered only by one thing, and that is definite and expressed arrange- 
ment with Mr. Caldwell. I am anxious to acquire the interest he has promised 
me, but I do not get a definite understanding with him as I have with you. 

I shall be in Boston in a few days, and shall then have an opportunity to 
talk the matter over fully with you. I am disposed to think that whatever I 
do with Mr. Caldwell must really be done through you. 

Kind regards to Mrs. Fisher. 

Sincerely, 

W. F., Jr., Esq. J. G. BLAINE. 



Then in July I wrote this letter ; they began then to speak of the 
road : 

Augusta, Maine, July 2, 1869. 

My Dear Mr. Fisher: You ask me if I am satisfied with the offer you 
make me of a share in your new railroad enterprise. 

Of course I am more than satisfied with the terms of the offer. I think it 
a most liberal proposition. 

If I hesitate at all, it is from considerations no way connected with the 
character of the offer. Your liberal mode of dealing with me in all our busi- 
ness transactions of the past eight years has not passed without my full appre- 
ciation. What I wrote you on the 29th was intended to bring Caldwell to a 
definite proposition. That was all. 

I go to Boston by same train that carries this letter, and will call at your 
office to-morrow at twelve M. If you don't happen to be in, no matter. 
Don't put yourself to any trouble about it. 

Yours, 

W. Fisher, Jr. J. G. B. 

Here is a letter which was written just before that : 

Augusta, June 29, 1869. 

My Dear Mr. Fisher: I thank you for the article from Mr. Lewis. It is 
good in itself and will do good. He writes like a man of large intelligence 
and comprehension. 

Your offer to admit me to a participation in the new railroad enterprise is 
in every respect as generous as I could expect or desire. I thank you very 
sincerely for it, and in this connection I wish to make a suggestion of a some- 
what selfish character. It is this: You spoke of Mr. Caldwell disposing of a 
share of his interest to me. If he really designs to do so, I wish he would 
make the proposition definite, so that I could know just what to depend on. 
Perhaps if he waits till the full development of the enterprise he might grow 
reluctant to part with the share ; and I do not by this mean any distrust of 
him. 

I do not feel that I shall prove a dead-head in the enterprise if I once 
embark in it. I see various channels in which I know I can be useful. 

Very hastily and sincerely, your friend, 
Mr. Fisher, J. G. BLAINE. 

India Street, Boston. 

Mr. Frye. I desire to ask my colleague if the trade which is 
alluded to there between him and Mr. Caldwell, called a share, or 
scheme, or something of that kind, was ever entered into between him 
and Mr. Caldwell? 



MR. BLAINE AND THE 



Mr. Blaine. It was not. That was a proposition to sell me a share 
in what was called the bed-rock of the road, to let me be interested in 
the building of it. That transaction was never consummated. All 
that I ever had to do with the road was this most unfortunate transac- 
tion of my life, pecuniarily and otherwise, in buying and selling some 
of the bonds. 

Washington, May 14, 1870. 

My Dear Mr. Fisher: I think, on the whole, I had better not insist on 
the $40,000 additional bonds at same rate. My engagement was not absolute, 
and I can back out of it with honor. I would rather do this than seem to be 
exacting or indelicate. 

Besides, I have always felt that Mr. Caldwell manifested the most gentle- 
manly spirit toward me, and designed to treat me handsomely in the end. 
On the whole, therefore, I shall be better off perhaps to let things remain as 
they are. But I will follow your judgment in this matter if I can find what . 
it is. 

Very hastily, 

W. Fisher, Esq. , J. G. BLAINE. 

Augusta, October 1. 1871. 

My Dear Mr. Fisher : I am doing all in my power to expedite and hasten 
the delivery of that stock. The delay has been occasioned by circumstances, 
wholly beyond my control. But I shall reach a conclusiou within a few days 
and make the formal delivery then. It will be an immense relief to get it off 
my hands, I assure you; far greater than it will be for you to receive it. 

You must have strangely misunderstood Mr. Caldwell in regard to his pay- 
ing those notes. He has paid me in all just $6,000, leaving $19,000 due, which 
I am carrying here at 8 and 8k per cent, interest, and which embarrasses me 
beyond all imagination. I do not really know which w T ay to turn for relief, I 
am so pressed and hampered. The Little Rock and Fort Smith matter has 
been a sore experience to me, and if you and Mr. Caldwell between you cannot 
pay me the $19,000 of borrowed money, I don't know what I shall do. Polit- 
ically I am charged with being a wealthy man. Personally and pecuniarily 
I am laboring under the most fearful embarrassments, and the greatest of all 
these embarrassments is the $19,000 which I handed over under your orders, 
and not one dollar of which I have received. Of the $25,000 original debt, Mr. 
Caldwell has paid $(5,000, and $6,000 only. Can you not give me some hope of 
relief in this matter ? It is cruel beyond measure to leave me so exposed and 
so suffering. 

You know my profound regard for you and my faith in you. We have been 
friends too long and too intimately to allow a shade between us now. 

Yours truly, 

J. G. BLAINE. 

That will surprise a great many people. 

Augusta, Maine, October 4, 1871. 

My Dear Mr. Fisher: You must have strangely misunderstood Mr. Cald- 
well's statement in regard to his paying me all but $2,500 of the $25,000 bor- 
rowed money which I loaned the company through him and you last January. 
Mr. Caldwell paid me in June $3,500, and in July $2,500 more, accepting at 
same time a draft for $2,500, July 10, ten days, which draft remains unpaid. 
I have, therefore, received but $6,000 from Mr. Caldwell, leaving $19,000 
(besides interest) due me to-day. 

For this $19,000 I am individually held, and, considering all the circum- 
stances, I think you and Mr. Caldweli should regard it as an honorary debt, 
and you should not allow me to suffer for money which I raised under the 
peculiar circumstances attending this. It is a singularly hard and oppressive 
case, the features and facts of which are familiar to you and Mr. Caldwell. 

And then, again, I have been used with positive cruelty in regard to the 
bonds. 



"MULLIGAN LETTERS." 



17 



I have your positive written contract to deliver me $ 125, 000 land-bond and. 
$32,500 first-mortgage bonds. The money due you on the contract was all 
paid nearly a year and a half ago. Of this whole amount of bonds due me I 
have received* but 850,000 land grants, leaving §75,000 of those and $32,500 
first mortgage still due. I know you are pressed and in trouble, and I don't 
wish to be too exacting ; rather I wish to be very liberal in settlement. 

Now, I make this offer : Pay me the cash due on the borrowed-money ac- 
count ; call it $19,000 in round numbers, and $40,000 land bonds, and we will 
call it square. 

Mr. Caldwell has repeatedly assured me that I should be paid all the bonds 
due me under contracts with you, and outside of that £20,000 due me from 
him. I now voluntarily offer to make a very large reduction if I can have the 
matter closed. 

I am without doubt the only person who has paid money for bonds without 
receiving them, and I think you will agree with me that I have fared pretty 
roughly. It would be an immense, immeasurable relief to me if I could receive 
the money in time to pay off the indebtedness here within the next six weeks, 
so that I can go to Washington this winter with the load taken off my shoulders. 
It was placed there in the fullest faith and confidence that you and Mr. Cald- 
well would not let me suffer. I still cling to that faith and confidence. You 
will much oblige me by showing this letter to Mr. Caldwell. 

Yours, very truly, 

W. Fisher, Jr., Esq., Boston. J. G. BLAIXE. 

I will inform gentlemen for their benefit, especially those who are 
so eager to search the records of the circuit court at Little Rock, 
Arkansas, that it was this §25,000 which I recovered through the 
courts of Arkansas ; I think it was the 1st of May, this Spring. 

Washington, D.C., April 13, 1872. 

My Dear Mr. Fisher: I have your favor of the 12th. I am not prepared 
to pay any money just now in any direction, being so cramped and pressed 
that I am absolutely unable to do so. Please send me a copy of the notes of 
mine held by you with indorsed payments thereon. 

I would have been glad, instead of a demand upon me for payment of notes, 
if you had proposed a general settlement of all matters between us that remain 
unadjusted. There is still due to me on articles of agreement between us 
$70,000 in land bonds, and $31,000 in first-mortgage bonds, making $101,000 in 
all. For these bonds the money was paid you nearly three years ago, and 
every other party agreeing to take bonds on same basis has long since received 
its full quota. I alone am left hopeless and helpless, so far as I can see. Then 
there is the $25,000 which I borrowed and paid over, under your orders, to 
Mr. Pratt, for which I have received no pay. Mr. Caldwell paid me a small 
fraction of the amount as I supposed, but he now says the money he paid me 
must be credited to another account on which he was my debtor, and that he 
denies all responsibility, past, present, and future, on the $25,000, for the 
payment of which I must, he says, look solely to you. I only know that I 
delivered the money to Mr. Pratt on your written order. I still owe the money 
in Maine, and am carrying the greater part of it at 8 per cent. — nearly $2,000 
per annum steady draw on my resources, which are slender enough without 
this burden . 

Still further, I left with Mr. Mulliken, January, 1871, $6,000 in land-grant 
bonds Union Pacific Railroad, to be exchanged for a like amount of Little 
Rock land bonds with Mr. Caldwell, he to change back when I desire. Mr. 
Caldwell declined to take them, and you took them without any negotiation 
with me or any authority from me in regard to the matter. You placed the 
Little Rock land bonds in the envelope, and I have the original envelope with 
Mr. Mulliken's indorsement thereon of the fact of the delivery to you. Now, 
I do not complain of your taking the bonds, provided you hold yourself bound 
to replace them. The worst of the whole matter was that the bonds were only 
a part mine, and I have had to make good the others to the original owner. 



18 



MR. BLAINE AXD THE 



There are other matters to which I would refer ; but my letter is already 
long. 

I do not think, under the circumstances, it would he quite wise or kind in 
you to place any note or notes of mine that may happen to he in your posses- 
sion in the hands of third parties as collateral. 

In any event I ask as a simple favor that you will not do so, and that you 
will send me by return mail a copy of all obligations of mine in your possession. 

Mrs. Blaine" joins me in very kind regards to Mrs. Fisher," and in the ex- 
pression of the hope that you may have a pleasant and profitable tour in 
Europe. Sincerely yours, 

YVarrex Fisher, Jr., Esq. J. G. BLAINE. 

There is mentioned in this letter §6,000 f land-grant bonds of the 
Union Pacific Railroad for which I stood as only part owner ; they 
were only in part mine. As I have started out to make a personal 
explanation, I want to make a full explanation in regard to this- 
matter. Those bonds were not mine except in this sense : In 1869 a 
lady who is a member of my family and whose financial affairs I have 
looked after for many years — many gentlemen will know to whom I 
refer without my being more explicit — bought on the recommenda- 
tion of Mr. Samuel Hooper §6,000 in land-grant bonds of the Lnion 
Pacific Railroad as they were issued in 1869. She got them on what 
was called the stockholder's basis ; I think it was a very favorable 
basis on which they distributed these bonds. These §6,000 of land- 
grant bonds w T ere obtained in that way. 

In 1871 the L T nion Pacific Railroad Company broke down, and 
these bonds fell so that they were worth about forty cents on the 
dollar. She was anxious to make herself safe : and 1 had so much 
confidence in the Fort Smith land bonds that I proposed to her to 
make an exchange. The six bonds were in my possession ; and I had 
previously advanced money to her for certain purposes and held a part 
of these bonds as security for that advance. The bonds in that sense, 
and in that sense only, were mine — that they were security for the 
loan which I had made. They were all literally hers ; they were all 
sold finally on her account — not one of them for me. I make this 
statement in order to be perfectly fair. 

I have now read those fifteen let^°rs, the whole of them. The 
House and the country now know all there is in them. They are 
dated and they correspond precisely with Mulligan's memorandum, 
which I have here. I keep this memorandum as a protection to 
myself ; for it is very valuable as showing the identity of the letters 
in every respect. 

Mr. ^Glover. Will the gentleman allow that memorandum to be 
read ? 

Mr. Blaine. AVait just a moment. There was a contract also 
among these — the same that was put in evidence by Mulligan — of 
the parties in Maine who bought Little Rock bonds. I only refer to 
that because it is the same in every respect with that which has 
already been made public. He also testified to something as being 
among Mr. Fisher's papers about the Northern Pacific Railroad. 
That makes eighteen papers. I will put them all in ; let them all go. 

Mr. Hale. Does the exhibit which the gentleman has made cover 
every paper of every kind whatever that came from Mulligan ? 



"MULLIGAN LETTERS." 



19 



Mr. Blaine. Every solitary scrap and "scrimptiorj," as the children 
say. (These papers will be appended in a foot-note to these remarks.) 

Mr. Glover. Will the gentleman from Maine now respond to the 
request I made, that the memorandum of Mr. Mulligan be read at the 
Clerk's Desk? 

Mr. Blaine. Oh, yes ; I shall be glad to have it read. 

The Clerk read as follows : 

No. 1. October 4, '69, relating to debate in the House and Blaine's ruling, 
and favors lie was to receive from C. for pressing bill extending time on first 
20 miles. 

Mr. Blaine. This is what Mr. Mulligan puts down as the substance 
of the letters. 

The Clerk continued the reading, as follows : 

No. 2. October 4, '69, on same subject. 

No. 3. June 27, '69, thanking Fisher for admitting him to participation in 
L. & F. R. R., and urging him to make call; -say how much he would give him, 
and for what. He knew he would be no dead-head, but would render valuable 
assistance. 

No. 4. July 25, '69, on the same subject. 

No. 5. September 5, '69, contract with different parties. 

Xo. 6. Contract with Northern Pacific. 

No. 7. May 14, '70, Caldwell designs to treat him handsomely in the end. 
No. 8. October 24, '71, Fisher to Blaine, urging settlement of N. P. R. ac- 
count, $25,000. 

Mr. Blaine. There was no such letter in the package. The letter 
he speaks of seems to have been a letter from Mr. Fisher to myself. 
There was no such letter in the package ; and the numbers he gives 
do not call for it. There are fifteen letters and three pieces of 
paper. At any rate that was not a letter from me. 

The Clerk continued the reading as follows : 

No. 9. October 4, '71, Blaine admits that there was $6,000 paid on the 
825,000 loan and to have received 850,000 from Fisher. 

No. 10. October 1, '71, admits being paid 86,000 on account of loan. 

Mr. Blaine sold sundry parties 8125,000 in first-mortgage bonds, and com- 
mon stock 8125,000, preferred stock 8125,000; for which was paid by them 
8125,000 cash; and Mr. Blaine was to receive for his share of the transaction 
8125,000 in land-grant bonds, and 832,500 in first-mortgage bonds. Total, 
8157,500. 

Now, calling land and first-mortgage bonds equal in value, and stock value- 
less for 8125,000 plus 8157,000 equals 8282,000 bonds ; cash 825,000 equals 44 ft 
per cent. 

Mr. Blaine also sold sundry parties 863,000 bonds and 856,000 stock for 
cash 843.150. 

815,150 less cash paid Mr, Blaine for his share in the transaction. 

828,000 net cash received by Mr. Fisher for the above 863,000 bonds and 
856,000 stock, equal 44 f| per cent for the bonds, calling stock nothing. 

Mr. Blaine in final settlement, September 21, 1872, claimed only 8101,000 
bonds due December letter (December 3, '72); he previously received 861,000, 
and was to look to Caldwell for balance. 

Sept. 21, '72, received 840,000. 

Xo. 11. Apl. 13, 1872, saying there was 8101.000 bonds due him, and claim- 
ing that there was due him on Union Pacific bonds exchanged 86,000, and 
admitting that there were some of them his own. 

No. 12. Apl. 18, 1872, admits the 864,000 sale bonds, and paid the money 
over in forty-eight hours to Maine parties. 



20 



MR. BLAINE AND THE 



Mr. Blaine. See the abstract that he makes : 

Admits the 864,000 sale bonds, and paid the money over in forty-eight hoars 
to Maine parties. 

There is not a word said about it in the letter. 

The Clerk continued and concluded the reading as follows : 

No. 13. Aug. 9, '72, as dry financially as a contribution-box, and borrowing 
money to defray his campaign expenses. 
No. 14. Aug. 31, '72, about settlement. 

No. 15. May 26, '64, says he was a partner in the Spencer Rifle Co. 

Mr. Blaine. Now, Mr. Speaker, I would be glad to have any gentle- 
man, who desires to be frank examine these letters, as they will be 
printed in the Record, and see the obvious intent and animus of Mul- 
ligan in making up this memorandum ; I will not further comment on 
it. I desire to call attention to the fact that these are the letters for 
which I was ready to commit " suicide," and do sundry and divers 
other desperate things in order to acquire them. 

I do not wish to detain the House, but I have one or two more 
observations to make. The specific charge that went to the committee 
of which the honorable gentleman from Virginia is chairman, so far 
as it affects me, was whether I was a party in interest to the sixty-four 
thousand dollar transaction ; and I submit that up to this time there 
has not been one particle of proof before the committee sustaining that 
charge. Gentlemen have said what they had heard somebody else say, 
and generally when that somebody else was brought on the stand it 
appeared that he did not say it at all. Colonel Thomas A. Scott swore 
very positively and distinctly under the most rigid cross-examination 
all about it. Let me call attention to that letter of mine which 
Mulligan says refers to that. I ask your attention, gentlemen, as 
closely as if you were a jury, while I show the absurdity of that state- 
ment. It is in evidence that with the exception of a small fraction 
the bonds which were sold to parties in Maine were first-mortgage 
bonds. It is in evidence over and over again that the bonds which 
went to the Union Pacific road were land-grant bonds. Therefore it 
is a moral impossibility the bonds taken up to Maine should have gone 
to the Union Pacific Kailroad. They were of different series, different 
kinds, different colors, everything different, as different as if not 
issued within a thousand miles of each other. So on its face it is 
shown it could not be so. 

There has not been, I say, one positive piece of testimony in any 
direction. They sent to Arkansas to get some hearsay about bonds. 
They sent to Boston to get some hearsay. Mulligan was contradicted 
by Fisher, and Atkins and Scott swore directly against him. Morton, 
of Morton, Bliss & Co., never heard my name in the matter. Carne- 
gee, who negotiated the note, never heard my name in that connection. 
Rollins said it was one of the intangible rumors he spoke of as floating 
in the air. Gentlemen who have lived any time in Washington need 
not be told that intangible rumors get considerable circulation here; 
and if a man is to be held accountable before the bar of public opinion 
for intangible rumors, who in the House will stand ? 



"MULLIGAN LETTERS." 



21 



Now, gentlemen, those letters I have read were picked out of corre- 
spondence extending over fifteen years. The man did his worst, the 
very worst he could, out of the most intimate business correspondence 
of my life. I ask, gentlemen, if any of you, and I ask it with some 
feeling, can stand a severer scrutiny of or more rigid investigation 
into your private correspondence ? That was the worst he could do. 

There is one piece of testimony wanting. There is but one thing to 
close the complete circle of evidence. There is but one witness whom 
I could not have, to whom the Judiciary Committee, taking into 
account the great and intimate connection he had with the transac- 
tion, was asked to send a cable despatch, and I ask the gentleman 
from Kentucky if that despatch was sent to him ? 
* Mr. Frye. Who ? 

Mr. Blaine. To Josiah Caldwell. 

Mr. Knott. I will reply to the gentleman that Judge Hunton and 
myself have both endeavored to get Mr. Caldwell's address, and have 
not yet got it. 

Mr. Blaine. Has the gentleman from Kentucky received a despatch 
from Caldwell? 

Mr. Knott. I will explain that directly. 
Mr. Blaine. I want a categorical answer. 

Mr. Knott. I have received a despatch purporting to be from Mr. 
Caldwell. 
Mr. Blaine. You did? 
Mr. Knott. How did you know I got it ? 

Mr. Blaine. When did you get it ? I want the gentleman from 
Kentucky to answer when he got it. 
Mr. Knott. Answer my question first. 
Mr. Blaine. I never heard of it until yesterday. 
Mr. Knott. How did you hear it ? 

Mr. Blaine. I heard you got a despatch last Thursday morning at 
eight o'clock from Josiah Caldwell completely and a.bsolutely exoner- 
ating me from this charge, and you have suppressed it. [Protracted 
applause upon the floor and in the galleries.] I want the gentleman 
to answer. [After a pause.] Does the gentleman from Kentucky 
decline to answer. 

The Speaker {pro tempore) . The gentleman will suspend until order 
is restored. The doorkeepers will remove from the Hall those not 
entitled to the floor ; and the galleries will be cleared if this applause 
is repeated. So long as the present occupant is in the chair that rule 
will be enforced. 

Mr. Blaine. Mr. Speaker, I ask to offer the following resolution as 
a matter of privilege in this connection. 

The Speaker {pro tempore). The gentleman from Maine will suspend 
until order is restored. The Chair is not responsible for this disorder, 
and the doorkeepers have failed to keep, out men not authorized to 
come into the Hall. There are. in this Hall those not members double 
the number of members. The doorkeepers will enforce the rules of 
the House. Those who are not entitled to the floor will leave it. 



22 



MB. BLAINE AND THE 



Members of the House will be seated. [After a pause.] The gentle- 
man from Maine will proceed. 

Mr. Blaine. I want the gentleman from Kentucky to answer me, 
or rather to answer the House, that question. 

Mr. Knott. I will answer that when I get ready. Go on with your 
speech. 

Mr. Blaine. I desire to offer the following resolution. 
The Clerk read as follows : 

Resolved, That the Committee on the Judiciary be instructed to report forth- 
with to the House whether in acting under the resolution of the House of May 2, 
relative to the purchase by the Pacific Railroad Company of seventy-five land- 
grant bonds of the Little Rock and Fort Smith Railroad, it has sent any tele- 
gram to one Josiah Caldwell, in Europe, and received a reply thereto. And? 
if so, to report said telegram and reply, with the date when said reply was 
received, and the reasons why the same has been suppressed. 

Mr. Blaine. After that add, "or whether they have heard from 
Josiah Caldwell in anyway." Just add those words, "and what." 
Give it to me and I will modify it. 

The Speaker {pro tempore). The Clerk will read the modification of 
the resolution. 

The Clerk read as follows : 

And whether they have heard from the said Josiah Caldwell, in any other 
way, and to what effect. 

Mr. Blaine. The gentleman from Kentucky, in responding, prob- 
ably, I think, from what he said, intended to convey the idea I had 
some illegitimate knowledge of how that despatch was obtained. T 
have had no communication with Josiah Caldwell. I have had no 
means of knowing from the telegraph office whether the telegram was 
received. But I tell the gentleman from Kentucky that murder will 
out. 

Mr. Glover. That is true. 

Mr. Blaine. And secrets will leak. And I tell the gentleman now, 
and I am prepared to state to this House, that at eight o'clock on 
last Thursday morning, or thereabouts, the gentleman from Kentucky 
received and receipted for a message addressed to him from Josiah 
Caldwell, in London, entirely corroborating and substantiating the 
statements of Thomas A. Scott, which he had just read in the New 
York papers, and entirely exculpating me from the charges which I 
am bound to believe from the suppression of that report the gentle- 
man is anxious to fasten upon me. 

I call the previous question on that resolution. 

[Protracted applause from the floor and the galleries.] 



"MULLIGAN LETTERS." 



23 



Foot-note. — Papers I, J, and K, found with the letters surrendered by Mulli- 
gan, are hereto appended. The papers relating to the Northen Pacific road 
are not remembered by Mr. Blaine ; the handwriting is not known to him, 
and he can recall no connection with them in any respect. They are, however, 
quite unimportant. 

- Cost of A of 1 share, 8466,667, is $58,333 

& of $416,667, to receive in bonds, is at par $52,083, 
- at 90c., would be 46,875 

$11,458 

for which you will get h of 541,234 stock, which is $67,654 ; and when the road 
is finished you will get h of 3,416,708, which is 427,088 in stock, beside your 
interest in the Land Company, which is proportionate. Bonds at par would 
make the above amount of stock cost about $6,250. 

J. 

Whereas, under certain agreements with the Northern Pacific Railroad 
Company dated May 20, 1869," and January 1, 1870, Messrs. Jay Cooke & Co. 
have become fiscal agents for the negotiations of the securities of said com- 
pany upon the terms therein stated; and whereas, under said agreements, Jay- 
Cooke & Co. become possessed of twelve of the twenty-four interests consti- 
tuting the company and representing its franchises ; and whereas Jay Cooke & 
Co., for the purpose of furnishing funds under their agreements as fiscal agents, 
for the construction and equipment of the road from its intersection with the 
Lake Superior and Mississippi Railroad to the Red River, near the mouth of 
the Cheyenne, a distance of about two hundred and twenty-five miles, forming 
a complete road from Lake Superior to the Red River, have- offered to the sub- 
scribers, for the first five millions of dollars of the first-mortgage bonds of the 
company, the following terms, namely: 

The subscribers to purchase of Jay Cooke & Co. the said bonds bearing 7.3 
gold interest at par, 85,000,000, and twelve interests in the company at $50,000 
each, -8600,000, amounting in all to 85,600,000; or, say, twelve shares of $466,- 
667 each to be paid for in installments, extending through about fifteen months, 
as the funds may be required by the company, for which each share shall re- 
ceive as follows : 

Bonds, one-twelfth of 85,000,000 $416,667 

Preliminary issue of stock $93,400 

Twenty per cent, stock commissions on bonds . 83,334 

476,734 

and 840,500 stock upon completion of each section of twenty-five miles of the 
road. 

Thus, upon completion to Red River, estimating the distance at two hundred 
and twenty-five miles (nine sections of twenty-five miles each), each share will 
have received nine times 840,500, equal to 8364.500, in addition to previously 
stated 8176,734, say 8541,234 stock ; and this proportionate issue continuing 
with the progress of the road, upon completion to the Pacific each share will 
have received in all 8416,667 bonds and 83,416,708 stock (the fractions in all 
cases being adjusted in even figures), and the entire five millions of bonds will 
thus carry with them a total of 841,000,500 stock. 

It is designed in addition to organize a private land company for the pur- 
chase and sale of desirable town sites and other valuable lands, from which 
large profits are anticipated ; the interests in such company to be held in the 
same proportion with the subscriptions to the present agreement, and the funds 
required to be assessed correspondingly from time to time, of course, with the 
consent of the parties. 

Upon the foregoing terms, we, the undersigned, subscribe the shares and 
portions of shares set opposite our names, to be paid for in installments as 
called, the bonds to carry interest from date of payments. 



/ 



24 



MR. BLAIXE AXD THE 



It is also hereby agreed by the subscribers whose uarnes are hereby annexed 
that they«jvill leave with Jay Cooke & Co. their proxies on all stock acquired 
under the terms of this agreement, and that they will not dispose of any of the 
first-mortgage bonds subscribed for unless with the consent of said Jay Cooke 
& Co., or until such sales shall cease to interfere with the plans of the fiscal 
agents for providing of necessary funds for the completion and equipment of 
the whole line of road. 

K. 

Boston. September 5. 1869. 

Whereas I have, this day, entered into agreements with A. & P. Coburn, 
and sundry other parties resident in Maine, to deliver to them certain specified 
amounts of the common stock, preferred stock, and first-mortgage bonds of 
the Little Rock and Fort Smith Railroad Company, upon said parties paying 
to me the aggregate sum of $130,000, which several agreements are witnessed 
by J. G. Blaine and delivered to said parties by said Blaine. 

Now this agreement witnesses, that upon the due fulfilment of the several 
contracts referred to, by the payment of the S 130.000. and for other valuable 
considerations, the receipt of which is acknowledged, I hereby agree to deliver 
to J. G. Blaine, or order, as the same come into my hands as assignee of the 
contract for building the Little Rock and Fort Smith Railroad, the following 
securities, namely: Of the land bonds. 7 per_ cents. 8130.000 : of the first mort- 
gage-bonds, gokh sixes. 832.500. And these 8130,000 of land bonds and 832,500 
of first-mortgage bonds thus agreed to be delivered to said Blaine are over and 
above the securities agreed to be delivered by Warren Fisher, Jr., assignee to 
the parties making the contracts, which parties, with the several amounts to 
be paid by each, and the securities to be received by each, are named in a 
memorandum on the next page of this sheet. 

And it is further agreed, that in the event of any one of said parties failing 
to pay the amount stipulated, then the amount of securities to be delivered to 
said Blaine under this agreement shall be reduced in the same proportion that 
the deficit of pavment bears to the a°"°:re°"ate amount agreed to be paid. 

WARREN FISHER, Jr., Assignee. 

Witness: 

Alvan R. Flanders. 
[Stamp.] 

Parties contracting with Warren Fisher, Jr., Assignee, as referred to in 
p rece d i n g a g ree rn ent. 





To pay. 


To receice. 






Cash. 


Common 
stock. 


Preferred, 
stock. 


First-mortg 
hands. 


1. A. & P. Coburn . . . 


850.000 


8 50.000 


850.000 


850.000 




. . 10.000 


10.000 


10.000 


10.000 


3. Anson P. Morrill . . . 


. . 10.000 


10,000 


10.000 


10,000 


4. Ralph C. Johnson . . . 


. . 10.000 


10.000 


10.000 


10,000 




. . 5.000 


5.000 


5.000 


5.000 


6. C. B. Hazeltine .... 


5.000 


5,000 


5.000 


5,000 


7. N. P. Monroe .... 


. . 5.000 


5.000 


5.000 


5.000 


8. A. W. Johnson .... 


5,000 


5.000 


5.000 


5.000 


9. H. H. Johnson .... 


. . 5,000 


5.000 


5,000 


5,000 


10. Philo Hersev 


. . 5.000 


5.000 


5,000 


5.000 


11. Lot M. Morrill .... 


. . 5,000 


5,000 


5,000 


5.000 


12. A. B. Farwell .... 


. . 5,000 


5,000 


5,000 


5,000 


13. Joseph H. Williams . . 


5,000 


5,000 


5,000 


5.000 


U. Charles M. Bailey . . . 


. . 5,000 


5,000 


5,000 


5,000 



8130,000 8130,000 8130,000 8130,000 



In addition to the above, there are to be delivered to J. G. Blaine's order of 
the land bonds in 7s., currency, 8130,000: first-mortgage bonds, 6s., gold, 

832,500. 



*• MULLIGAN LETTERS." 



25 



Mr. Holman. I ask that the resolution be again read. 
The resolution was again read. 
Mr. Knott rose. 

The Speaker {pro tempore). Does the gentleman from Maine insist 
on the demand for the previous question ? 

Mr. Blaine. If the gentleman from Kentucky desires to speak, I 
do not insist on it. But I do not yield the floor. 

The Speaker (p>ro tempore). The gentleman from Maine, not yield- 
ing the floor, insists on the demand for the previous question. 

Mr. Holman. Mr. Speaker, it appears to me that the resolution is 
only in order on a motion to suspend the rules. 

Mr. Blaine. O, no; I hold most decidedly, and I am sure the hon- 
orable occupant of the Chair will sustain me in so holding, that the 
resolution embraces a question of the highest privilege. 

Mr. Holman. I am making no point against 'the resolution. 

Mr. Blaine. I hope the gentleman will not take the ground that 
this is not a privileged resolution. 

Mr. Holman. I am not making the point ; but it seems to me 
there is the same right to call for a report on any matter which may 
have been referred to that committee. 

Mr. Blaine. Xo, sir. I say that this involves the good faith and 
the honor of the Judiciary Committee. 

Mr. Holman. Ah ! that is a different matter. Mr. Speaker, I rise 
to make an inquiry. 

The Speaker (pro tempore). The gentleman from Indiana will 
state it. 

Mr. Holman. The gentleman from Kentucky (Mr. Knott) rose, as 
I understood, with a desire to submit some explanation. If the pre- 
vious question should now be seconded, would that exclude the gentle- 
man from Kentucky from that privilege ? 

Mr. Blaine. I am quite willing that the gentleman from Kentucky 
should be heard. I do not want to stop him, but I wish a vote on the 
previous question. 

The Speaker (pro tempore). The gentleman from Maine insists on 
a vote on his motion for the previous question. 

Mr. Blaine. I do not insist on that now. I insist on the right to 
call the previous question, but not to the exclusion of the gentleman 
from Kentucky from speaking. 

The Speaker (pro tempore). If the gentleman from Maine does not 
yield the floor, the Chair has no other alternative than to put the 
question on the motion for the piwious question. 

Mr. Blaine. Then I will yield the floor. 

The Speaker (pro tempore). The gentleman's hour has expired. 

Mr. Blaine. I know that the honorable Speaker will, of course, 
recognize me at the proper time, hereafter, to move the previous ques- 
tion. 

The Speaker (pro tempore). The Chair will decide that when the 
time comes. 

Mr. Holman. The gentleman from Maine must see the fairness of 
allowing the gentleman from Kentucky to make an explanation. 



26 



MR. BLAINE AND THE 



Mr. Blaine. I do ; and I withdraw for the present the motion for 
the previous question, knowing that the Chair will recognize me here- 
after to renew the motion. 

The Speaker (pro tempore). The Chair does not decide that now. 

Mr. Blaine. The Chair could not do otherwise. 

Mr. Philips (of Missouri). I reserve the right to make the point of 
order on the competency of the resolution at this time. 

Mr) Garfield. Too late. 

The Speaker (pro tempore). It is not too late. Does the gentle- 
man from Missouri make that point of order ? 
Mr. Philips (of Missouri). I do. 

The Speaker (pro tempore). It has been repeatedly decided by 
Speaker Kerr that a resolution following an explanation of this kind 
is in order. That decision has been made several times this session. ■ 

Mr* Jones (of Kentucky). I desire to say a word. YVhen I rose a 
while ago my motive might have been misunderstood. I intended to 
say, if the question asked by the gentleman from Maine was a proper 
question, it ought to be answered ; and I intended to demand myself 
that it should be answered. 

Mr. Blaine. I thank the gentleman from Kentucky. 

Mr. Jones (of Kentucky). The question, if a proper one, ought to 
be answered ; and I have no doubt it will be when the gentleman 
from Kentucky (Mr. Knott) sees fit. 

Mr. Knott. I yield to the gentleman from Virginia. 

Mr. Hunton. I claim the indulgence of the House for a very brief 
period. 

The Speaker (pro tempore). The Chair begs to state to the House 
that the doorkeepers report to him that it is utterly impossible to 
clear this hall unless the Capitol police be called in. The doorkeepers 
are instructed to call in the police, if necessary, and clear, the hall of 
outsiders. 

Mr. Atkins. Has the Serge an t-at-arms any duties in this matter? 

The Speaker (pro tempore). The Sergeant-at-arms is bound by the 
rules to assist in that duty. The officers of the House will also clear 
the cloak-room of those who are not entitled to the privileges of the 
hall. 

After a pause of some minutes, 

Mr. Kasson said : I ask for the regular order. 

The Speaker (pro tempore). The regular order is that the House be 
in order. 

Mr. Keisson. The House is in more disorder than when the Chair 
suspended proceedings. 

The Speaker (pro tempore). The Chair will take care that the reg- 
ular order is called at the proper time. Gentlemen who are in the 
cloak-room, and not entitled to the privileges of the hall, will retire. 
The Chair has given the order, and he intends that it shall be 
enforced ; but the order has not yet been enforced, and the Chair is 
utterly powerless unless the doorkeepers assist. There are many per- 
sons on the floor who are here without authority, and who refuse to go 
out. (After a pause, during which order in the hall was restored.) 
The gentleman from Virginia will proceed. 



"MULLIGAN LETTERS." 



27 



Mr. Hunton. I desire, Mr. Speaker, as chairman of the sub-com- 
mittee to whom allusion has been frequently made in the statement 
of the gentleman from Maine, to detain the House to make a short 
statement of the matters to which he has alluded, and I trust that in 
doing this I shall speak as a member of the committee, and tell 
calmly, dispassionately, fairly, what has occurred before that sub-com- 
mittee of which the gentleman from Maine complains. 

I beg leave to say in advance that the House has witnessed this 
morning a remarkable, not to say an unexampled scene, a scene which 
may have its example in the history of legislation, but, if so, it has 
escaped my observation and reading on the subject. 

During the present session of this House two resolutions were 
adopted, each of which ordered an investigation, each of which was 
referred to the committee on the Judiciary of this House, and each of 
which was referred to a sub-committee, consisting of Mr. Ashe of 
Xorth Carolina, Mr. Lawrence of Ohio, and myself as chairman of 
the committee ; and before the committee has finished the taking 
of the testimony, before that committee has reached a conclusion, an 
effort is made by the gentleman supposed to be mostly concerned in 
these investigations, to take the consideration of these questions from 
the organ of the House, and report upon them in person. I need not 
remind the House what sort of a report would come from that com- 
mittee if it were allowed to be made by the gentleman from Maine. 
But I say that after this House has ordered an investigation, and has 
committed that investigation to a committee of the House, it is not 
only unexampled, but entirely against legislative proceedings, for a 
gentleman to rise and undertake to anticipate what the conclusion of 
that committee shall be, and to state w T hat the action of that commit- 
tee has been. 

Xow, Mr. Speaker, in regard to the action of this committee, I will 
endeavor to follow some of the points made by the gentleman from 
Maine, and if I state any of the facts wrong, I hope either of the gen- 
tlemen of that committee will correct me, because I desire to state 
nothing but what is accurately true in the statement I shall submit to 
the House. 

The first point made by the gentleman from Maine was that it very 
soon was discovered that the resolution introduced by the gentleman 
from Massachusetts {Mr. Tarbox) was aimed at him, although his 
name was not mentioned in the resolution, and that he learned this 
from the proceedings of the sub-committee. 

I beg to say to the House that the sub-committee and its chair- 
man first learned from the gentleman from Maine that he was 
the man aimed at. He does not forget that after the resolution of 
Mr. Tarbox was referred to the sub-committee at his instance, I had an 
interview with him in the committee-room of the Committee of Ways 
and Means, and in that interview the gentleman from Maine spoke of 
it as a resolution affecting him. Xot only that, but he expressed him- 
self satisfied and pleased with the personnel of the sub-committee, 
although two of them were confederates. And at the instance of the 
gentleman from Maine a day was appointed upon which the sub-corn- 



28 



MR. BLAINE AND THE 



mittee was to enter upon its duties. And yet he tells this House that 
he learned from the sub-committee that he was the party to be investi- 
gated, and not the Union Pacific Railroad, as set out in the resolution 
of Mr. Tarbox. The first I heard either from a member of the House 
or a member of the committee on the subject was from the gentleman 
from Maine {Mr. Blaine) himself, that the resolution referred to him, 
and he wanted the investigation commenced on a given day, and pro- 
ceeded with, with as much despatch as possible from that day. I told 
the gentleman from Maine that the investigation I should undertake 
should be as kindly as I could make it, and it should be as fairly con- 
ducted as I could conduct it, but as thorough as it could possibly be. 

I acceded to his wish that the investigation should not commence 
until a day not very distant in the future, I think about ten days off. 
The reason why he did not want the investigation to begin at once' 
was that he wanted to go to Philadelphia during what is known as 
the Centennial week, and did not want the investigation to commence 
until the following week. The request was granted with a great deal 
of pleasure, and on the very day indicated by him, the very day he 
requested the investigation to begin, it was begun, and from that day 
to this there has been no hour that the committee could devote to this 
investigation that has not been devoted to it, except when the gentle- 
man himself prevented it, and I say that more than two weeks' time 
has been lost to this committee because of the conduct of the gentle- 
man from Maine ; I do not mean to attach airy blame to him ; the 
first was the postponement until the week after the Centennial, and 
the next was a week of indisposition on his part; and even this morn- 
ing I rose at the hour of four o'clock to come to this city, a distance 
of sixty miles, to renew the investigation and get through with it as 
soon as possible. The gentleman from Maine and his friends were 
not present, and the investigation had to be postponed. And yet he 
tells the House that the investigation is " prolonged, prolonged, pro- 
longed," and seeks to make the impression on the House that it is the 
purpose of the committee to prolong this investigation for some sinis- 
ter purpose. Why, he might just as well have said that we desired to 
postpone it until after the 14th of June ; and every member of the com- 
mittee will bear me witness to every word I say, that the committee 
worked in season and out of season, — sitting on one occasion nearly 
the entire day in order to get through with this investigation before 
the 14th day of June; and every delay that has occurred, every day 
when the committee was not able to be in session, it was either because 
the gentleman from Maine was absent or requested an adjournment. 
I will not say " every day," for it is possible that there were one or 
two days when we had a meeting of the full committee, or something 
of that kind. But the delay has been at his instance, has been caused 
by him ; for this sub-committee has worked as (I say) no other sub-com- 
mittee of this House has ever worked. So much for the prolonging of 
this investigation. 

I had no desire, God knows, to prolong it. I had no desire to enter 
upon it; but it was a duty imposed upon me by the House, and I 
intended to discharge that duty, as 1 have endeavored to discharge 



" MULLIGAN LETTERS." 



29 



every such duty here, with fairness, impartiality, and a due regard to 
my duty to the House of Representatives. But the gentleman says 
that when we had been examining witnesses under what is known as 
the Tarbox resolution, to his surprise he found that I claimed, or the 
committee claimed, that they had jurisdiction to investigate certain 
Pacific railroads, and that he was to be involved in the investigation 
of those Pacific railroads as well as under the Tarbox resolution. 

Now, the gentleman cannot have forgotten what occurred in that 
connection ; and, not having forgotten it, it was his duty in fairness 
to have stated it to this House. He knows that this resolution of Mr. 
Luttrell, of California, directing an investigation into all the Pacific 
railroads that had received subsidies from the Government, was 
alluded to almost from the start of the investigation by the sub-com- 
mittee ; therefore he could not have been surprised in the least to 
learn in the last day or two that there was to be an investigation 
under the Luttrell resolution. 

I desire to state specifically what occurred on this subject a day or 
two ago in the committee-room. I was asked, "Is there to be an 
investigation under this Luttrell resolution?" I said to Mr. Blaine, 
" The resolution will require an investigation that will take months at 
the hands of this committee. You have expressed a desire that all 
the investigation touching you shall be done speedily and concluded 
as soon as possible. If you desire it, I will not take up any other road 
except the Northern Pacific and the Kansas Pacific, because as to 
these two railroads your name has been mentioned as involved in an 
unpleasant way ; and for your sake, that you may get a report before 
the tedious examinations of the affairs of all these Pacific railroads, 
we will take up first the matter which touches you, if you desire it." 
Mr. Blaine said that he desired us to go on. 

Yet he is very much surprised after all these things occurred in the 
committee-room. He is surprised to find that an investigation is to 
be undertaken by this sub-committee which involves an examination 
in these specific railroads, and it is to be prolonged, prolonged, pro- 
longed, when we agreed for his sake and at his instance to skip all 
the other inquiries under the Luttrell resolution, until we had disposed 
of those which seemed to attach to Mr. Blaine. 

Mr. Frye. Will my colleague on the Committee on the Judiciary 
(Mr. Hunton) allow me to ask him a question in relation to that which 
he has just mentioned ? 

Mr. Hunton. Certainly. 

Mr. Frye. Did not Mr. Blaine, in that last conversation, object 
that under the resolution the committee had no jurisdiction of a stock 
transaction between two individuals ? 

Mr. Hunton. Is that your only question ? 

Mr. Frye. Yes. 

Mr. Hunton. I will answer it. I think it very likely he did. And 
I think also that if we had left the question of jurisdiction to Mr. 
Blaine, there would have been a great many questions ruled out. 
[Laughter.] But the committee had to decide the question of juris- 
diction for themselves, and they decided that they had jurisdiction to 
go on. 



30 



MR. BLAINE A>~D THE 



11 



0111- 

tlie 



Mr. Frye. I will ask you — 

Mr. Hunton. I do not desire to be interrupted any further, ii the 
gentleman will excuse me. 
Mr. Frye. Very well. 

Mr. Hunton. I say that ; lie re was no ground for the surprise of the 
gentleman, and instead of bad faith on the part of this committee in 
undertaking this investigation into the affairs of the Pacific railroads, 
ir was our bo una en duty, as the organ of the House, to undertake it. 
and to do what we could, whether we got through this session or not. 
And for the purpose of bringing to a close the matters which seemed 
to bear upon Mr. Blaine. — and this House and the country knows 
that there have been publications which drew froni him certainly once, 
if not twice, a personal explanation on this floor, — for the purpose of 
getting at them speedily, and getting a report into this House 
as we could, I said: -If you wish, Mr. Blaine, we will not go into 
all these other read-, but take up the Northern Pacific lb ad and the 
Kansas Pacific Road, because there is, connected with those two roads, 
a charge against you." Now. it there is anything unfair in that I 
cannot see it, and I guarantee that this House cannot see it. 

Then about these letter- : and that I believe is the gist of 1 
plaint before this House. In order to set that question be: 
House properly, I desire to state it as it arose in the committee-room 
on the evidence. And I beg leave to state here, before I go from this 
point, that every witness that has been examined before the com- 
mittee, whether his testimony was made in favor of Mr. J J'.-: ' >. cr 
against him, was summoned by the committee without any suggestion 
from Mr. Blaine or any of his friends. He did on cue occasion Send 
me a memorandum of witnesses to summon, and my reply on the back 
of the memorandum was that every one of those witnesses had already 
been summoned (or were ordered to be summoned) by the Sergeant- 
at-Arrns. Therefore every witness who has appeared betore the 
committee under either resolution was summoned by the committee 
without any suggestion from Mr. Blaine or any of his friends. 

Among these witnesses appeared Mr. James Mulligan, of .the city of 
Boston, a gentleman whose character is unimpeached, and, according 
to the testimony, unimpeachable. Mr. Fisher was put on the stand to 
state some things differently from Mr. Mulligan, and he was asked the 
question : " What sort of a man is James Mulligan ? 99 He was put 
upon the stand by Mr. Blaine, and. after his examination-in-chief 
had ended, he was asked this question. His reply was substantially, 
if not literally, "He is as good as any man I ever knew, or the best 
man I ever knew." Mr. Atkins, another witness introduced for the 
same purpose, said substantially the same thing of Mr. Mulligan. I 
desire to say to this House in the beginning that Mr. Mulligan stood 
before that committee with a reputation for truth and veracity equal 
to that of any gentleman on this floor. What may be his character I 
know not ; I never saw him until he appeared in the committee-room. 

Mr. Frye. Will my colleague on the committee pardon me a mo- 
ment ? 

Mr. Hunton. Certainly. 



••mulligan: letters." 



31 



Mr. Frye. From the gentleman's statement in relation to these 
questions as to the character of Mr. Mulligan, the impression might 
go out that Mr. Blaine asked those questions. Will the gentleman 
please state whether or not, he, as chairman of the committee, asked 
them ? 

Mr. H i niton. I did, sir. 

Mr. Frye. That is all. 

Mr. Hunton. And the witness answered just as I have stated. I 
wanted to know what sort of a witness I was dealing with. I put the 
question for the information of the committee. This witness, who had 
been summoned from Boston, was put upon the stand, and I did not 
know what he would testify to. If anybody had ever informed me 
what Mr. Mulligan's testimony would be, or what it would relate to, I 
had forgotten it entirely. In the course of his examination, the first 
day, Mr. Mulligan was testifying very quietly ; there was no excite- 
ment in the committee-room at all when he happened to mention that 
he had in his possession certain letters written by Mr. Blaine to 
Warren Fisher, Jr. The mention of these letters seemed to have a 
remarkable effect on Mr. Blaine, for, in a moment or two afterward, 
he whispered to Mr. Lawrence , the republican member of that com- 
mittee, "Move an adjournment." It so happened that I heard the 
suggestion. Mr. Lawrence got up with great solemnity on his 
countenance, and said, "Mr. Chairman. I am very sick, and I hope 
the committee will adjourn." [Laughter.] 

Mr. Lawrence rose. 

Mr. Hunton. I hope the gentleman is better to-day. 
Mr. Lawrence. Will my colleague on the committee allow me to 
ask a question or make a statement ? 
Mr. Hunton. Certainly. 

J//*. Lawrence. I will ask my colleague whether, when I went into 
the committee-room on that morning, the first thing I said to him, 
before I had spoken to anybody else, was not that I had been exceed- 
ingly sick during the night ? [Laughter.] I had been to Baltimore 
on the clay before ; and though I had not indulged in anything that 
would necessarily make me sick, yet I was extremely sick, so much so 
that it was with difficulty I sat there at all. I said simply what was 
true when I said that I was extremely unwell: and, as the " gentleman 
knows, I have been quite unwell ever since. [Laughter.] 

Mr. Frye. What time was it when it was proposed to adjourn? 

Mr. Lawrence. It was then half-past twelve o'clock, half an horn 
beyond the time when the committee usually adjourns to attend the 
sittings of the House. Now, my friend says that he heard the remark 
of Mr, Blaine asking me to move to adjourn. It was not necessary 
that I should state what Mr. Blaine had said to me 

Mr. Hunton. Nobody asked you to do so. 

Mr. Lawrence. The gentleman says he heard it : but it was not 
necessary that I should state every ground for asking the adjournment. 
Mr. Hunton. Certainly not. 

Mr. Lawrence. It was sufficient that I deemed it necessary to ask 
an adjournment. [Laughter.] 



32 



MR. BLAINE AND THE 



Mr. Hunton. The gentleman has stated the matter exactly as it 
occurred. He did come in, in the morning, sick. 
Mr. Lawrence. Yes, sir. 

Mr. Hunton. But he went to work in a most vigorous style for two 
hours. 

Mr. Lawrence. But I became exhausted. 

Mr. Hunton. When those letters were mentioned, the gentleman 
became sick, and somebody else sicker. [Laughter.] And the mo- 
tion to adjourn was made at his suggestion. 

Mr. Lawrence. It ought to be said, in justice to Mr. Blaine, that 
so far as anything said by him to me could indicate his purpose, the 
motion to adjourn suggested by him was not caused by any fear of 
what was going on. 

Mr. Hunton. I never intimated such a thing. The gentleman is 
raising men of straw just to knock them over. But I do say that 
after these letters were mentioned incidentally by Mr. Mulligan, the 
reference being brought out without a question (for I had not the 
remotest conception that he had any such letters in his possession), 
the gentleman from Ohio did rise, at the suggestion of the gentleman 
from Maine, and move an adjournment; and he put it upon the 
ground that he was sick, and we had been sitting over our time, any- 
how. These are the exact facts. Now, why the motion to adjourn 
was suggested to the gentleman, and whether he was absolutely taken 
sicker at that moment, I cannot tell, and do not propose to inquire ; 
but an adjournment was had. We did not like to keep our colleague 
there in misery and distress; on account of his sickness, and because 
we had sat over the hour which we were allowed to sit, an adjourn- 
ment was had. The committee adjourned until the next morning at 
ten o'clock; and when we met, James Mulligan was put upon the 
stand again to complete his examination, which had been interrupted 
by the motion to adjourn. He was asked a question which did not 
look to the letters, which had no reference to them whatever. He 
said : " Mr. Chairman, before I proceed to answer that question, I 
desire to make a personal explanation painful to myself." 

I will commence at the beginning of his personal explanation. I 
will state it substantially as he did, and if I err in any important par- 
ticular, I trust I will be corrected. Upon the evening of his first 
arrival in the city of Washington, before I knew he was in the city, 
he and Warren Fisher were waited on by Mr. Blaine. They were 
invited to the house of Mr. Blaine. Mr. Mulligan said, " Mr. Blaine, 
I decline to go to your house ; I do not want to talk about what I 
have been brought here for. I desire to take the stand to-morrow 
untrammelled by conversation of any kind with anybody." Warren 
Fisher went to the house of Mr. Blaine. Twice Mr. Blaine sent a 
messenger down to induce Mulligan to come to his house. Mr. Mulli- 
gan still declined, and presently Mr. Blaine and Warren Fisher came 
into the hotel where Mulligan stopped in the city of Washington (the 
Biggs House). Mr. Mulligan was in the barber-shop, undergoing the 
pleasant operation of shaving, or about to undergo it, and Mr. Blaine 
followed him into the barber-shop and commenced to entreat and 



"MULLIGAN LETTERS." 



33 



earnestly to request that Mulligan would give up those letters which 
Blaine had addressed to Warren Fisher. Mulligan declined to do it. 

Mr. Frye. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman — 

A Member. I object to interruption. 

Mr. Frye. I ask my colleague of the committee if I may interrupt 
him ? 

Mr. Hunton. Yes, you may. 

Mr. Frye. The gentleman is now stating evidence, and I desire him 
to be very careful, because, as I remember it, there is no testimony 
whatever showing, or tending to show, that Mr. Blaine, in a barber- 
shop, in the presence of the barber, entreated Mulligan for those let- 
ters. 

Mr. Hunton. It matters not where he entreated him. I am under 
the impression it was there, but I am not certain. 

Mr. Frye. The letters were not read in any barber-shop. 

Mr. Hunton. I will take him out of the barber-shop. It does not 
matter in the least where the entreaty was made. Mr. Blaine en- 
treated him. I give you now the substance of the language of the 
witness. He entreated him with tears in his eyes, going down on his 
knees, or almost on his knees — 

Mr. Frye. En the barber-shop ? 

Mr. Hunton. I did not say in the barber-shop. I do not care where 
it was. It was in his room, I believe ; but he made this entreaty. 
The witness said, " with tears in his eyes, almost, if not quite, on his 
knees; " " ' if you do not deliver those letters to me, I am ruined, and 
my family disgraced.' " Of course I mean to be understood here that 
the witness meant that Blaine's family would be disgraced through 
the ruin of Mr. Blaine. He also threatened to commit suicide. Mr. 
Mulligan refused to deliver the letters. He said : "Mr. Blaine, I see 
by the evening paper that my testimony given to the committee to- 
day is to be assailed," — to use his own word, " impugned," — "and 
in case my character and testimony are assailed, I want those letters 
to justify me in my testimony before the committee." Mr. Blaine 
asked : " Do you suppose I am going to assail you ? " The witness 
said : "If you do not assail me, others may, and my character is too 
dear to me not to vindicate it if I can." Mr. Blaine then tried poli- 
tics with him, and he asked the witness : " Are you content with your 
station ? " To this Mulligan said he would like to improve it if he 
could. Mr. Blaine said : " Would you like a political office ? " Mul- 
ligan replied he did not like politics, and did not care about it. Mr. 
Blaine then asked how he would like a foreign consulship ? He said 
he would not like it; and after that Blaine said: "Let me see the 
letters, to peruse them." The witness objected, but he said finally, 
upon a pledge of honor from Mr. Blaine that he would return the let- 
ters, they were given him to read. He read them over once or twice, 
and returned them to the witness. Again he made an effort to obtain 
those letters, and Mr. Mulligan left the company and went into his 
room. In a short time Mr. Blaine followed him into his room, and 
this scene occurred between the parties without any witnesses : Mr, 
Blaine again endeavored to get possession of the letters. The witness 



34 



ME. BLAINE AND THE 



again declined to deliver them. The witness says that Mr. Blaine 
said : " I want to re-read those letters again, and I want to have them 
for that purpose." 

Mr. Frye. I desire to ask my colleague a question there. 

Mr. Hunton. Very well. 

Mr. Frye. I want to call his attention — 

Mr. Hunton. I trust you will, if I misstated the testimony. 

Mr. Frye. The impression I received from the statement just made 
is, that this effort and threat to commit suicide was in the presence of 
witnesses. 

Mr. Hunton. No ; I did not say it was. 
Mr. Frye. It was not ? 
Mr. Hunton. It was not. 

Mr. Frye. Do not you know he testified it was to himself? 

Mr. Hunton. I think he did ; that it was to himself alone. He 
asked the witness to let him see the letters again ; and the witness 
said that on a like pledge of honor to return them to him, he deliv- 
ered those letters over a second time to Mr. Blaine, to read and return 
them ; and when Mr. Blaine had read them and kept them a short 
time, he refused to deliver them. The witness became excited, de- 
manded his letters, and followed Mr. Blaine into the room of Mr. 
Atkins on the floor below, and there demanded his letters from Mr. 
Blaine ; and he not only demanded his letters, but he demanded the 
private memorandum which the witness himself had made to use on 
his examination before the committee, to refresh his memory. This 
was taken by Mr. Blaine, and this also he refused to deliver. 

Mr. Frye. Will the gentleman pardon me again for interrupting 
him ? 

Mr. Hunton. Certainly. 

Mr. Frye. Do I understand the gentleman as stating that Mr. 
Mulligan testified that he demanded in addition to the letters the 
private memorandum ? 

Mr. Hunton. No, sir. He said that Mr. Blaine took it when the 
letters were handed to him. The memorandum was with the letters 
when they were handed to him. 

Mr. Frye. It was in the bundle ? 

Mr. Hunton. That may be. 

Mr. Frye. Was it so ? 

Mr. Hunton. I think it was. And when Mr. Blaine refused to 
deliver the letters, he refused also to deliver the memorandum. Now 
this was the statement made by the witness before the committee 
charged with the investigation of these subjects. Who has a right to 
complain ? The gentleman from Maine or the committee ? Who has 
a right to complain? The gentleman from Maine or this House? 
Here was a witness summoned from Boston. He did not appear as a 
volunteer in the case. He came under the compulsory process of the 
House, and was entitled to the protection of the House as long as he 
was in the city of Washington under his subpoena. Is the authority 
of this House, in bringing witnesses here to testify to subject-matters 
of inquiry which the House has thought proper to make, to be pro- 



"MULLIGAN LETTERS." 



35 



tected or not ? It is a question which concerns this House more than 
the sub-committee of which I have the honor to be chairman. 

But the gentleman from Maine says that these were his letters. 
Why, sir, it is an utter mistake as to the law of the case — an utter, 
complete mistake. I say to this House, without the fear of successful 
refutation, that according to the well-settled principles of law those 
letters belonged to Mr. Warren Fisher from the time he received them 
from the mail until he delivered them over to Mr. Mulligan, and Mr. 
Mulligan was entitled to the possession and ownership of those letters 
from that period. 

In regard to how Mr. Mulligan got possession of those letters, he 
says, and Mr. Fisher corroborates his statement, that those letters 
were taken possession of and brought to the city of Washington by 
James Mulligan with the full consent and approbation of Warren 
Fisher. There was no surreptitious possession of these letters on the 
part of the witness, but they were brought here- with the knowledge 
and consent of Warren Fisher, and witness brought them for the pur- 
pose of sustaining his testimony on the stand if it became necessary to 
use them. And I say, Mr. Speaker, that from the very moment 
Warren Fisher received those letters from Mr. Blaine, Mr. Blaine 
ceased to have any control of them. He had no more right to the 
possession or control of those letters than he has to my watch now in 
my pocket or any other piece of property which I may own. Some of 
the authorities go so far as to say that the publication of private corre r 
spondence may be enjoined by the writer or author of the correspond- 
ence if it is attempted on the part of the holder to use that correspond- 
ence to the detriment of the writer's property. But until that is attempted 
or threatened the writer has no right to interfere with any sort of use 
that the recipient of those letters chooses to make of them. 

I will not go further into this question, because my friend, the 
chairman of the committee, the gentleman from Kentucky, (Mr. 
Knott,) is fortified with authorities on this subject, and wdll state the 
law more clearly than I can. But if Mr. Blaine — as I have said the 
law declares — was not entitled to the possession and had no right to 
the letters, I ask how he can justify his course before this House in 
taking the letters under a promise on his honor to return them and 
then withhold them. 

Well, the sub-committee thought that, as the letters were obtained 
by Mr. Blaine under circumstances such as I have detailed, it was 
right and proper that they should be given up to the committee or 
returned to the witness, the rightful owner of these letters ; and 
when the demand was made upon Mr. Blaine for the production of 
them he asked for time to consult counsel. His demand w T as cheerfully 
granted, and an adjournment took place from that day until ten 
o'clock the next morning. At ten o'clock the next morning we heard 
from Mr. Blaine that he had not gotten through with the consultation ; 
that owing to peculiar circumstances he had not been able to get the 
two counsel together the preceding night. We gave him until twelve 
o'clock. Twelve o'clock arrived ; and he still w T as not ready. At two 
o'clock he came before the sub-committee with the opinion of Judge 
Black and Mr. Carpenter stating that we had no right to demand 



36 



ME. BLAISE AND THE 



these letters ; that they were private property pertaining to the private 
business of Mr. Blaine ; and that we had no right to demand them, 
and Mr. Blaine should resist the demand. 

Xow, the committee may have very high respect for the authority 
of Judge Black and Mr. Carpenter, but they were investigating a 
question for the House, and not according to the rules prescribed by 
Mr. Carpenter and Judge Black. They did not choose that Mr. Car- 
penter and Judge Black should decide a question which the House had 
ordered them to decide. 

Mr. Frye. Will the gentleman allow me a question ? 

Mr. Hunt on. Yes, sir. 

Mr* Frye. Did not Mr. Mulligan on three different occasions testify 
that there was not more than one letter which touched however re- 
motely any subject under investigation, whether the Union Pacific 
Kailroad, the bonds sold the company by Tom Scott, or the Northern 
Pacific, or the Central Pacific, or all of the rest of those roads named 
in that resolution? Did he not testify in answer to your interroga- 
tories at three different times that only one letter however remotely 
touched any matter which the sub-committee were investigating ? 

Mr, H union. Xo. sir: he did not so testify, according to my recol- 
lection. I will tell you what he did testifv. 

Mr. Frye. Well, sir. 

Mr. Hunton. He testified on one or two or perhaps on three occa- 
sions that he did not think that there were but two letters in the 
batch which bore upon the subject-matter of inquiry before the com- 
mittee : one in regard to the Xorthern Pacific and the other in regard 
to the Union Pacific. 

Mr. Frye. Yes, sir. 

Mr. Hunton. That is what he said, but the committee thought that 
as the letters had been obtained in the manner in which Mr. Blaine 
had obtained these letters, it was not only their right but their duty 
to determine the question for themselves whether the letters were 
pertinent to the subject-matter of inquiry or not. 

Mr. Frye. One other question. The gentleman says in response to 
my question that there were two letters, one relating to the Union 
and the other to the Xorthern Pacific Railroad. On the day before 
yesterday, when you were pursuing the Xorthern Pacific inquiry, did 
he not swear distinctly that there was not one letter which related at 
all to the Xorthern Pacific ? 

Mr. Hunton. He mentioned a statement which related to it. 

Mr. Frye. A statement but not a letter, and that statement not in 
Mr. Blaine's handwriting. 

Mr. Hunton. Xo, sir. 

Mr. Frye. Did he not state that the statement was not in Mr. 
Blaine's handwriting ? 

Mr. Hunton. I stated so. 
Mr. Frye. . One more question. 
Mr. Hunton. I yield for one more. 

Mr. Frye. Was there, when this witness was subpoenaed to Wash- 
ington, any suhpoena duces tecum at all? 
Mr. Hunton. Xo, sir. 



" MULLIGAN LETTEES." 



37 



Mr, Frye. That is all. 

Mr. Hunton. I do not see what difference it makes whether there 
was a subpoena duces tecum or not. The object of a subpoena duces 
tecum is to require the witness to bring papers. If he brings them 
without a subpoena duces tecum, the object is attained, because the 
letters are there ; and the witness has a right to bring them without a 
subpoena duces tecum for the purpose for which he indicated he did 
bring them. 

Now, I say, sir, that when these facts came out that there was a 
letter and a statement, which I believe was stated by Mr. Blaine to 
have been written by his clerk — when we found from the witness 
that one of these letters in that statement did relate to the subject- 
matter under inquiry, that when the solicitude was manifested to 
obtain possession of the letters, I ask the House whether it was not 
only the right but the duty of the sub-committee to demand at the 
hands of Mr. Blaine the restoration of these letters to the witness, or 
their production to the committee? The committee told Mr. Blaine, 
"If you say these letters are your private papers, surrender them 
to the committee ; you did not get possession of them in a manner 
which the committee think rightful, whatever may be your opinion 
about it, and we desire to see those letters, not to be made public, not 
to be published as a part of the proceedings of the committee, not to 
be given to the correspondents of newspapers to be spread throughout 
the length and breadth of the land, but to be inspected by the com- 
mittee in private and used only when found pertinent." 

Mr. Frye. Mr. Speaker — 

Mr. Hunton. I thought you said that you were only going to ask 
one question more ? 

Mr. Frye. Ah ! at that time, allow me to ask if Mr. Blaine did not 
ask the chairman of the sub-committee — 

Mr. Hunton. I am coming to that, if the gentleman will let me. I 
do not mean to omit an important particular ; but let me state the 
case in my own way. 

Mr. Frye. Very well. 

Mr. Hunton. I stated that the committee ought to inspect those 
letters in private, and that wherever there was one that did not refer 
to the subject-matter of this investigation, either under the Luttrell 
resolution or the Tarbox resolution, those letters, which were found 
to be private, should not be made public. 

Mr. Frye. That is not what my inquiry was about. 

Mr. Hunton. Iam coming to your inquiry; do not be impatient, 
if you please. 

Mr. Frye. Very well. 

Mr. Hunton. I know what the gentleman wants to ask me : if Mr. 
Blaine did not invite me to his house to read these letters. 
Mr. Frye. That was not it. 
Mr. Hunton. What was it? 

Mr. Frye. I know Mr. Blaine did invite you, and told you that 
you might read all the letters. But I want to ask you if Mr. Blaine 
did not ask the sub-committee whether, if he produced these letters 



38 



ME. BLAINE AND THE 



and gave them to them, they should be examined privately, and only 
those put on record that related to the case ; and if Mr. Hunton, the 
chairman of the sub-committee, did not say no, he would not examine 
them privately ? 

Mr. Hunton. No, sir. 

Mr. Frye. You say you did not say that? 

Mr. Hunton. I say I refused individually to examine them privately. 
Mr. Frye. Was not that inquiry addressed to you when the sub- 
committee was in session ? 
Mr. Hunton. Yes, sir. 

Mr. Frye. Then I understand you. to say that you understood that 
inquiry to be addressed to you privately ? 
Mr. Hunton. I understood it so. 
Mr. Frye. I understood it differently. 

Mr. Hunton. I understood it as I have stated, and I do not think I 
am mistaken. I said to Mr. Blaine over and over again, " Mr. Blaine, 
I do not want to see your correspondence either public or private. I 
have no right to read it except as a committee-man ; and these two 
gentlemen who sit on either side of me have the same right I have." 
I did not mean to receive at the hands of Mr. Blaine any letters or 
any papers that my colleagues on the committee could not see and 
inspect with me. 

When I had the honor of an invitation to the gentleman's house to 
read these letters, I replied to it in the same way: "Mr. Blaine, I have 
no right to go to your house as a private citizen and read your corres- 
pondence ; if I have the right to look at it at all, it is as a member 
and as the chairman of this committee ; and if I have no right to Took 
at it in that way, I have no right to look at it at all, and will not 
do it." 

I believe he has stated on this floor to-day, and if I am wrong I hope 
I may be corrected, that forty-four gentlemen have read these papers. 
My colleague on the committee, the gentleman from North Carolina 
(Mr. Ashe) reminds me that when Mr. Blaine refused to produce these 
letters, he, or one of the members of the committee, asked that the 
memorandum of the witness should be surrendered to the committee, 
that we might examine it and see whether these letters were public 
and bore upon the subject of this investigation, or were private. That 
was refused. 

When I refused to go to the gentleman's house and read these let- 
ters, I did it because I did not want, and God knows I do not want 
now, to pry into his private correspondence ; but I thought it was my 
duty, as a member of the committee, and my duty to this House, to 
demand at his hands the production of letters and memorandum ob- 
tained in the manner in which I have stated. Now it is for this House 
to determine whether I did right or wrong, whether the committee 
did right or wrong. If I did wrong, I did it in pursuance of what I 
thought was my duty to this House to investigate thoroughly, and I 
trust impartially the subject-matters of inquiry addressed by the 
House to the Judiciary Committee. If I have erred, it has been an 
error of the judgment, and I say to-day that it is a job I never fancied. 



" MULLIGAN LETTERS." 



39 



Mr. Blaine. Will the gentleman permit me to ask him a question ? 
Mr. Hunton. Yes, sir. 

Mr. Blaine. Does the gentleman know of a dispatch received from 
Josiah Caldwell in London? 

Mr. Hunton. My friend, the chairman of the Committee on the 
Judiciary (Mr. Knott), will reply to you in full on that subject. 

Mr. Blaine. I ask the gentleman if he knows — 

Mr. Hunton. I do not mean to answer a question addressed properly 
to the chairman of the committee. 

Mr. Blaine. But I address it to the chairman with whom I have 
been dealing. I ask the gentleman who is the chairman of the sub- 
committee to state to this House whether on Thursday morning last, 
the chairman of the full committee, Mr. Knott, of Kentucky, did not 
come to the committee-room and call the gentleman from Virginia out, 
and then, or at some other time, acquaint him with that fact? 

Mr. Hunton. Now you are done. 

Mr. Blaine. I do not know ; it depends upon your answer. 

Mr. Hunton. You are done, unless I choose to yield to you again. 

Mr. Blaine. I ask you that question. 

Mr. Hunton. And I answer you that if my friend from Kentucky 
(Mr. Knott) does not answer you fully, I will. 
Mr. Blaine. Ah, that is not what — 

Mr. Hunton. I will not yield to the gentleman any further. 
Mr. Blaine. Will the gentleman yield on another point? 
Mr. Hunton. Yes. 

Mr. Blaine. The gentleman will pardon me for a moment; I will 
give him more of my time in exchange. The gentleman has com- 
mented with an attempt at severity upon the fact that I saw these 
witnesses before they testified. Has it not been the habit of the 
gentleman from Virginia to see witnesses before they testified ? 

Mr. Hunton. Not my habit, sir ; I have seen several. 

Mr. Blaine. I have received this letter which I wish to read : 

Washington, D. C, May 23, 1876. 

Dear Sir: I arrived here last night to give my testimony in the case con- 
cerning yourself before the Judiciary Committee. I was summoned to the 
committee-room at ten o'clock this morning and was sorry to find the investi- 
gation postponed until to-morrow on account of your illness. I shall endeavor 
to call and pay my respects this evening. I was greatly taken by surprise 
at being taken aside by Mr. Hunton and somewhat closely interrogated pri- 
vately as to the points of the testimony I should be able to give against you. 
All his inquiries seemed to be made with an animus, and the thorough ques- 
tioning he gave me in this informal manner astonished me beyond measure. 
I had no idea that congressional investigations were conducted in this way. If 
they are they cease to be fair and honorable and degenerate into prosecutions 
and then into persecutions. 

I learned after leaving Mr. Hunton that he has been pursuing this course 
with other witnesses who are presumed to have some testimony to give against 
you. Mr. Hunton' s inquiries were not merely general, but were, it seemed 
to me, about as minute as they could well be, and put with an apparent desire 
to have every fact stated in a manner that would inculpate you. 

I have felt that I was in honor bound to communicate this to you as early as 
possible for your own protection. 

I am, very truly yours, 
Hon. J. G. Blaine. A. P. ROBINSON. 



40 



MR. BLAINE AND THE 



He came that evening and had some conversation with me ; and 
when the gentleman asked if he had seen me, he supposed it was in 
reference to the testimony. He did not come to tell me what he could 
testify to, but — 

Mr. Hunton. I did not give way for a speech. 

Mr. Blaine. I have made speech enough. 

Mr. Hunton. The animus of that witness is shown by his letter 
more than mine is shown by it. I do rot deny, I never have denied 
that I have talked with some half a dozen witnesses. 

Mr. Blaine. But he said it was understood you " coached " the wit- 
nesses ; that is the phrase he used. 

Mr. Hunton. I say that if he or any other man says that I under- 
took to " post " the witness or to " coach " him, or intimates by any 
other technical term which I may not understand that there has been 
an attempt on my part to influence his testimony, it is false, absolutely 
false. 

Now, I confess that I had talked to these witnesses ; but never, never 
have I attempted to influence their testimony in the slightest degree. 
My object in talking to the witnesses was to learn how to examine 
them ; I thought it my right and my duty. 

Mr. Blaine. That is just what Mr. Robinson says — that the object 
was to get the strong points against me. 

Mr. Hunton. I did not give way to the gentleman. I beg him to 
recollect that I have the floor, and not to attempt to take it from me 
until I yield to him. 

I want him to recollect also that I was not under investigation ; I 
was not interested in the result ; and though I may have talked to 
witnesses before their examination, was that as bad as for the gentle- 
man from Maine, who was interested in the result, to take them to his 
house ? I say here upon my personal responsibility that not once have 
I attempted to influence the testimony of a witness summoned before 
me in any investigation ordered by this House. AVhy, sir, the gentle- 
man knows that a witness in his examination in the open committee- 
room stated, "In my conversation with you, Mr. Hunton, this state- 
ment occurred." I never attempted to conceal the fact that on several 
occasions — probably four or five, it may be less or it may be more — 
I did talk with witnesses, that I might know under which resolution 
their testimony came ; that I might know how to bring out the facts 
in the possession of witness. If that is wrong, Mr. Speaker, it is an 
error of judgment on my part. I cannot see it. 

Now, these are the facts in this case ; and I beg the House to bear 
in mind that they have committed these investigations to the hands 
of a committee ; and while that committee is proceeding with its inves- 
tigation the gentleman from Maine, who supposes that he is involved 
in this investigation, undertakes to forestall the conclusions of that 
committee, and make his own statement to the House of the result of 
that investigation. Mr. Speaker, if this practice is to be observed in 
the House, let all references to committees be discontinued ; and 
whenever there is an inquiry here which may possibly involve a mem- 
ber, let that member get up on the floor and make his statement ; let 



" MULLIGAN LETTERS." 



41 



that be received as the report of the committee ; let it be adopted, and 
thus let the matter end. If that is not to be the practice, let this 
committee go on with its investigation. If the testimony does not 
implicate Mr. Blaine, I undertake to say that the committee will not 
only cheerfully and promptly, but with pleasure report that fact to the 
House. If, on the other hand, the testimony shall involve him in the 
charges which are under consideration by the committee, then rest 
assured that I, as one of the members of the committee, mean to report 
the facts to' the House and the conclusions to be drawn from these 
facts. 

Mr. Knott obtained the floor. 

The Speaker {pro tempore). The Clerk will read to those who wdll 
listen the rule as to those entitled to the privilege of admission to the 
floor. 

The Clerk read as follows : 

No person except members of the Senate, their Secretary, heads of depart- 
ments, the President's private secretary, foreign ministers, the governor for the 
time being of any State, Senators and Representatives elect, judges of the 
Supreme Court of the United States and of the Court of Claims, and such per- 
sons as have by name received the thanks of Congress shall be admitted within 
the hall of the House of Representatives or any of the rooms upon the same 
floor or leading into the same ; provided that ex-members of Congress who are 
not interested in any claim pending before Congress, and shall so register them- 
selves, may also be admitted within the hall of the House; and no persons ex- 
cept those herein specified shall at any time be admitted to the floor of the House. 

The Speaker {pro tempore). The Chair will state that numbers of 
persons on the floor have defied the officers of the House in remaining, 
and force has been required to put them outside of the Chamber. 
The Chair w T ill also state that it is the duty of the Doorkeeper and the 
Sergeant-at-Arms to enforce this rule; and in order that gentlemen 
may conduct the public business the Chair states that this rule will be 
enforced, if necessary, by the police belonging to the Capitol. The 
gentleman from Kentucky wdll proceed. 

Mr. Knott. Mr. Speaker, within the last two hours I have listened 
to imputations uron myself ; upon this floor which, coming from a dif- 
ferent source or elsewhere, I might, perhaps, answer very differently 
from the manner in which I shall attempt to answer them now. 
Those who are intimately acquainted with me know that I am the last 
man in the w T orld to seek a personal altercation, and I assure the 
House that of all men in the world the gentleman from Maine (Mr. 
Blaine) is the last man with whom I would seek such a conflict. He 
is entirely too immense in his proportions for me to presume to attack. 

Why, man, he doth bestride the narrow world 
Like a Colossus, and we petty men 
Walk under his huge legs and peep about 
To find ourselves dishonorable graves. 

Personal controversy seems to be his forte, and whenever he is engaged 
in a conflict of that kind on this floor the gentleman reminds me of 
Homer's description of Diomede : 

Dire was the clang and dreadful from afar, 
Was armed Tydides rushing to the war. 



42 



MR. BLAINE AND THE 



. No ; the gentleman, as my old friend Jim Johnson would say, is 
habitually and entirely "too pompious and uzurpious " for me to seek 
a contest with. [Laughter.] Two-thirds of the time when he is in 
the House he does not seem to realize whether he is in the Speaker's 
chair or on the floor, and to a stranger it would be an insoluble enigma. 

The gentleman, quite unnecessarily, as I shall show, has dragged 
me into this personal matter of his own. In the first place, he in- 
sinuates that, from some unworthy motive, I, as chairman of the Com- 
mittee on the Judiciary, appointed on the sub-committee, which has 
charge of this investigation, the gentleman from Virginia {Mr. Hun- 
ton) and the gentleman from North Carolina {Mr. Ashe). Well, in 
answer to that I have to say, first, that either of those gentlemen is 
his peer in any sense of the word, and, in point of honor, it is ho 
disparagement to the gentleman from Maine to say they are both his 
superiors. [Hisses on the Republican side of the House.] That is 
all right. There are but three animals in this world that hiss : vipers, 
geese, and fools. Hiss on ! [Laughter and applause.] 

In the second place this sub-committee was, as I remarked a while 
ago, selected long before there was any insinuation, public or private, 
that I knew of, that the gentleman from Maine was in any manner 
implicated in any of the alleged fraudulent transactions on the part of 
any of these railroad corporations, and it did seem to me, when the 
gentleman flung his imputation at me, as a little strange that he could 
ascribe any motive to me under the circumstances, even granting the 
gentleman from Virginia and the gentleman from North Carolina 
were his personal enemies. 

I repeat, sir, it does seem a little remarkable to me that you cannot 
touch one of those railroad companies but what the gentleman from 
Maine squeals. [Laughter.] Yes, sir, and I have no doubt it struck 
Mr. Harrison as a little remarkable, when that seventy-five-thousand- 
dollar bond transaction was mentioned in a meeting of directors of the 
Union Pacific Railroad, that the treasurer should say : " Do not say 
anything about that; it involves Blaine." [Renewed laughter.] 

I will say furthermore, Mr. Speaker, that when this sub-committee 
was raised, long before I had any intimation that Mr. Blaine was 
involved in any manner in the railroad companies to be investigated, 
I went to his particular friend and colleague and asked him to take a 
position on that sub-committee, which he declined. So much for the 
appointment of the sub-committee. 

Now as to the celebrated Mulligan letters — 

Mr. Frye. I should like to ask the gentleman a question. I sup- 
pose the gentleman referred to me. 
Mr. Knott. I referred to you, sir. 

Mr. Frye. I presume if that is so, — I have no recollection about 
it, but I have no reason to question the gentleman's word in the mat- 
ter, — if that was so, as a matter of course, it was to take the place 
occupied by Mr. Lawrence. 

Mr. Knott. Certainly. 

Mr. Frye. It was not to take the place occupied by the gentleman 
from Virginia or the gentleman from North Carolina? 



"MULLIGAN LETTERS." 



43 



Mr. Knott. Of course not. 

Now with regard to the correspondence which seems to have brought 
up this attack by the gentleman from Maine upon the Judiciary Com- 
mittee, so far as I have had anything to do with that, I will proceed to 
state it. The facts were laid before the committee that Mr. Mulligan 
had been summoned here to give testimony touching the subject-mat- 
ters referred to the sub-committee ; that he had appeared before the 
sub-committee and informed them, upon his arrival he had been ap- 
proached by Mr. Blaine for a private interview, which he declined ; 
that Mr. Blaine had asked him to show certain letters which were 
in his possession, — lawfully in his possession, — placed there by the 
recipient of those letters, Mr. Fisher, with his permission to the wit- 
ness to make whatever use of them he might see proper ; that he sur- 
rendered those letters to Mr. Blaine upon the personal promise of 
Mr. Blaine that he would return them to him after he had inspected 
them, which Mr. Blaine had refused to do ; and that, thereupon, the 
sub-committee asked the advice of the committee as to the course they 
were to pursue. While the discussion of that matter was pending, 
the challenge was thrown out by the gentleman's friends, which has 
been thrown out by the gentleman himself here to-day, that he should 
be brought before the bar of the House and g compelled to produce 
those letters. I then remarked, as I now remark, if the gentleman 
desires to join the noble army of martyrs, he must volunteer as he has 
done. I will never act as conscripting officer to get him a position in 
that glorious band. [Laughter.] 

More than that, the gentleman insinuates that it is the settled pur- 
pose of the Judiciary Committee to do something or other that may, 
perad venture, prevent him from receiving the nomination at the coming 
convention at Cincinnati. I beg the gentleman to understand that, so 
far as I am concerned, and I believe that so far as any of my colleagues 
are concerned, we are perfectly willing that he shall receive that nomi- 
nation. If, in the pending campaign, we cannot defeat the gentleman 
from Maine, God knows our case is hopeless, entirely so. If he should 
receive the nomination and be elected in the face of all the facts, all 
we can say is, may the Lord have mercy on the American people. 
[Laughter.] 

In the discussion as to what should be done by the sub-committee 
under the circumstances I have stated, I did take occasion to say what 
I now repeat here in the face of this House and the world ; that so far 
as those letters were concerned, they were legally the property of Mr. 
Fisher, and legally in the possession of his bailee, Mr. Mulligan, and 
that Mr. Blaine had no more right to the possession of them than I 
had; and that if he could procure letters under even an implied 
pledge of his personal honor to return them, and withhold them in 
the face of that pledge, it was a question for him to settle with the 
American people whose suffrages he seeks. 

I care not whether Mr. Mulligan extorted from him an express 
promise to return them or not. He received them, knowing that 
Mulligan expected him to return them, and kept them with a strong 
hand when they were not his property. I say they were not his prop- 



44 



MR. BLAINE AND THE 



erty, and I say that in view of the law of the case. I affirm that the 
only right the gentleman from Maine had at all in those letters was to 
publish their contents for his own private use if he thought proper, or 
restrain by injunction their publication by another. 

In one of the most celebrated cases upon this subject, where the 
whole question was thoroughly discussed and all the authorities re- 
viewed, the famous case of Grigsby and wife against Breckenridge, 
one of the most illustrious jurists that ever adorned the bench on this 
continent, Chief Justice Robertson, of Kentucky, says : 

A majority of the American cases even deny the right of the author to en- 
join the publication of a private letter, on the ground of property. But, as 
before suggested, we incline to the conclusion that the weight of authority, 
fortified by analogy, preponderates in favor of the author's special property 
in the publication, and in his consequential right to publish if he keep or can 
procure a copy. But the recipient is not bound to keep the original for his 
transcription, inspection, or other use. There is no adjudged case or ele- 
mentary dictum extending the author's right of property beyond this circum- 
scribed and contingent range. And all the cases cited in this case thus limit 
and define it. 

Publication by the author is circulation before the public eye by printing or 
multiplied copies in writing. The like publicity by the act of the recipient 
would be an infringement of the author's exclusive right, which he may pre- 
vent by injunction. 

He goes on to say : 

In an able article on the author's right to enjoin the publication of private 
letters, Parker, an eminent judge in Massachusetts and professor in the 
Harvard law school, said : 

" The receiver of a letter is not a bailee, nor does he stand in a character 
analogous to that of a bailee. There is no right to possession, present or 
future " — 

Mark you — 

" No right to possession, present or future, in the writer. 

Then where did the gentleman from Maine get the right to waylay 
Mr. Mulligan and procure these letters in the manner in which be ad- 
mits himself he did, and hold on to them in defiance of the bailee's 
right of possession ? 

The only right to be enforced against the holder is a right to prevent pub- 
lication, not to require the manuscript from the holder in order to a publication 
by himself. 

The right of the receiver — 

The right of the receiver — 

then, is to the whole letter. He may read it himself and to others, and recite 
it at meetings. He may do everything but multiply copies ; and perhaps he 
may do this, if he do not print them. 

Xow, sir, there is the whole case. Mr. Mulligan was legally in the 
possession of the letters by the permission of the recipient, with the 
authority to use them in any manner he saw proper. Those letters 
were taken from him under an implied promise, to say the least, to 
return them, and they are kept from him by a strong hand. The 
question what the sub-committee was to do under the circumstances 
was submitted to the Committee on the Judiciary. And now comes 
the strange part of the whole thing, which I believe has not yet been 
developed before the House. 



" MULLIGAN LETTERS." 



45 



Mr. Frye. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman allow me — 

The Speaker {pro tempore). Does the genjtleman yield to the gen- 
tleman from Maine? 

Mr. Knott. Here comes the strange part of the whole thing. The 
Committee on the Judiciary have done the gentleman from Maine no 
wrong. They have not even decided what shall be done with those 
letters. Nobody has even intimated that he shall be obliged to give 
them to any human being on the earth. The committee have taken 
no action in the matter at all, but on to-morrow morning that ques- 
tion was to be brought up, and yet in advance of their conclusion and 
in defiance of all parliamentary law that I have ever heard of, an Ex- 
Speaker of the House comes here on the pretext of a personal expla- 
nation and takes the matter away from the jurisdiction of a commit- 
tee to which it has been committed and drags it before the House. 

Now that is simply the condition in which the question stands. It 
is still sub judice, not decided at all, and with no intimation from 
any one that a solitary one of those letters would be taken from him 
or given to the public, but with a very positive assurance on my part 
to the gentleman, through his friends, that he would not be martyred 
by the Committee on the Judiciary, at least not with my consent. 

Mr. Frye. Now, will the gentleman yield to me for a moment ? 

The Speaker {pro tempore). Does the gentleman from Kentucky 
yield to the gentleman from Maine ? 

Mr. Knott. Why is all this noise made for so little wool ? 

The Speaker {pro tempore). The gentleman declines to yield. 

Mr. Knott. The Judiciary Committee, upon whom the gentleman 
has made such violent assaults, has done him no wrong. On the con- 
trary, that committee has extended to him every conceivable courtesy 
from the very beginning, as has been explained here by my honorable 
colleague from Virginia. 

No disposition has been manifested by any member of that com- 
mittee to do anything that would militate against the gentleman's in- 
terest in the slightest possible degree. Every request he ever made 
to the committee has been complied with. Every postponement asked 
for has been granted. When he has asked that the inquiry should be 
prosecuted without delay, it has been done, or at least attempted. 
When he has asked that the investigation be delayed, it has been 
delayed. When he has asked on technical grounds that evidence be 
excluded, it has invariably been excluded. Everything has been done 
to protect the gentleman ; for God knows we want him nominated. 
[Laughter.] He need not be afraid of meeting any opposition to his 
nomination on this side of the House. 

Now, Sir, there might be, I do not know that it ever will be, but 
there might be a grave question presented to the consideration of the 
House growing out of this matter, and that question is this : Whether 
after the House has committed a matter to a committee for investiga- 
tion its authority can be trifled with by having the witnesses who may 
be summoned before that committee met by the way-side by parties 
implicated, pumped, their documentary evidence taken from them, 
retained by force, and a contemptuous refusal given to the committee 



46 



ME. BLAINE AND THE 



when it calls for the production of papers thus obtained. Such a 
question, I say, might be raised, but I do not know that it ever will. 

Sir, the gentleman has read a letter from a Mr. Eobinson, and 
although I was not present when he was examined, I believe when 
that witness was asked if he had had an interview with Mr. Blaine he 
denied it, until after a great deal of questioning, and coaxing, and 
persuading he finally admitted that he had had such an interview. 

Mr. Hunton. Let -me state in regard to that matter that Mr. Ashe 
asked the witness the question whether he had talked of this matter 
with any gentleman since his arrival in Washington. He said he had 
talked to one or more. Mr. Ashe asked him to name them, and he 
named one. Mr. Ashe asked him whether with any one else, and 
he answered yes, with Mr. A. B. Mr. Ashe asked him if that 
was all, and he answered yes, to Mr. C. D. He was then asked, 
"Is that all?" and he answered, "Yes, that is all." At that point I 
asked him, " Have you not talked this matter over with Mr. Blaine 
since you arrived in W ashington city ? " and he said he had. 

Mr. Blaine. Who is that? 

Mr. Hunton. The witness Robinson. 

Mr. Blaine. Yes, he came to tell me how you had been coaching 
him. [Great laughter.] 

Mr. Knott. I was remarking that every request preferred by Mr. 
Blaine or his friends on the sub-committee has been granted. When- 
ever a legal question has been raised at his request or that of his 
friends and submitted to the whole committee, it has in every instance 
been decided, so far as I know and believe, with the utmost impar- 
tiality. When, for instance, a question was raised as to whether a 
certain witness should tell what Josiah Caldwell had told him about 
the seventy-five-thousand-dollar-bond transaction, it was objected on 
the part of Mr. Blaine that Mr. Caldwell was out of the jurisdiction 
of the United States, and the witness was not allowed to say a w T ord 
about Mr. Caldwell. A proposition was then made that Mr. Caldwell 
should be telegraphed to know if he would come here and give his 
testimony. That was objected to by Mr. Blaine and his friends. 
Why? Because, forsooth, Mr. Caldwell would not come if we were to 
telegraph for him. The question was submitted to the full com- 
mittee, and it was determined not to telegraph to him. But other 
witnesses continually referring to matters of which they had heard, 
showed the absolute necessity of having Mr. Caldwell's testimony if it 
could be obtained. After considerable delay the committee concluded 
that they would telegraph to him, and the chairman was instructed to 
do so. I asked my friend from Virginia {Mr. Hunton) to ascertain 
Mr. Caldwell's address, and he endeavored to do so, and left this 
memorandum with one of the officers of the House : 

Find some man from Arkansas, and learn where in Europe is Josiah Caldwell. 

After all the investigations that the officer of the House could 
make, we could not find out where Mr. Caldwell was. I myself 
inquired of several gentlemen, and requested one of them to write to 
Boston to ascertain where Caldwell was. It is true — and now I am 
going to make the gentleman from Maine happy, I have no doubt — 
that on last Thursday morning, about eight o'clock — I do not know 



" MULLIGAN LETTERS." 



47 



but it might have been a little after eight o'clock, or a little before 
eight o'clock, or at eight o'clock — I did receive such a telegram; but 
the gentleman from Maine seems to know precisely when it was — 
Mr. Blaine* I do. 

Mr. Knott. He seems to know precisely from what point it came. 
He seems to know T precisely the contents of the telegram. He seems 
to be thoroughly posted upon that subject. Now, right here, permit me 
to say with regard to the insinuation that that telegram was suppressed 
elsewhere, any man, high or low, whomsoever he may be, may make 
it and take the consequences here. I will hurl the falsehood into his 
teeth. I received it; but, so far from suppressing it, within less 
than thirty minutes after I received it I read it to several gentlemen. 
But there was no particular place designated in the dispatch as 
Caldwell's address, save London; no street, no house, no other locality 
whatever; and it did occur to me, and I am not altogether certain 
that I do not now believe, it was a fixed-up job ; so I thought I would 
wait a while and see what would come of it. 

Mr. Frye. Allow me to ask you a question there ? 

Mr. Knott. Wait until I get through with this. That dispatch 
came last Thursday. On Friday we had a general meeting of the 
committee. I had not the dispatch with me. I am not sure that 
I would have read it to the committee at that time if I had had it 
with me, as we were engaged with other matters. I am free to say 
that I had a suspicion that it was a fixed-up job. I have that suspi- 
cion now. The reason why I have it is that other people seem to 
know so much about it. I am assured that none of the gentlemen to 
whom I showed it have ever said anything to any mortal man in rela- 
tion to it. 

And I will say further that no longer ago than Saturday last I 
again asked the friend whom I had asked to write to Boston if he 
had ascertained for me the address of this Mr. Caldwell, and was told 
by him that he had not. I intended to telegraph to him; I wanted 
an answer to a telegram of my own, so that I might know it was 
genuine. If I failed in that, I intended to hand the telegram I had 
received to the committee for them to make whatever use they could 
of it. Xobody is hurt by that. Even if it were published to the four 
winds of heaven, it is not evidence for any purpose on the Lord's 
earth, and no lawyer will insinuate that it is. 

Now, sir, I will ask if I was under any obligation, legal or moral, 
to publish a telegram voluntarily sent to myself, without any solicita- 
tion upon my part, and in answer to no suggestion that I had made ? 
It struck me as something strange that this man should know so well 
to whom to telegraph, and what to telegraph, before he had ever had 
any communication at all with me on the subject ; and it still strikes 
me as strange. 

Mr. Hale. Will the gentleman from Kentucky allow me to ask him 
a question ? 

Mr. Knott. Yes; with a great deal of pleasure. 
Mr. Hale. The dispatch was received, was it not, upon Thursday 
morning last ? 



48 



ME. BLAINE AND THE 



Mr. Knott. I have said so two or three times over, distinctly. 

Mr. Hale. I want to fix the point ; that was the date ? 

Mr. Knott. And the word " London " was at the top of it. 

Mr. Hale. Did not that indicate to the gentleman last Thursday 
morning where Josiah Caldwell was, in order that he might telegraph 
to him and make certain whether it was a real dispatch ? And did 
the gentleman from Kentucky at once take that method of obtaining 
information as to the genuineness of the dispatch ? 

Mr. Knott. Now I will answer the gentleman. I had information 
that this Mr. Caldwell was somewhere in Italy. I had had that 
information from more than one that he was on the continent, and 
not in London ; and there being no point in London designated in 
the dispatch, no street or house in a city where there are millions of 
people, it struck me that I might as well have gone to hunt for a par- 
ticular drop of water in the middle of the ocean. 

Mr. Hale. Does not the gentleman know that the telegraph oper- 
ator in London would have learned that address at once, because that 
is an every-day method of securing the address of a person who has 
not given his address definitely? 

Mr. Knott, The gentleman knows more about it than I do. 

Mr. Hale. Does not the gentleman know that V 

Mr. Knott. The gentleman seems to know a great deal about it. 

Mr. Hale. I know enough to know that. 

Mr. Knott. Very well. Now, I say to this House, and to the gen- 
tleman from Maine, that any insinuation of my suppressing any 
paper, keeping it back illegitimately, for any purpose whatever, is not 
only gratuitous, but false. 

Mr. Hale. Will the gentleman read the dispatch, in order that we 
may see what there is in it ? 

Mr. Knott. When I get ready, I will. 

Mr. Hale. Does the gentleman from Kentucky propose to read it 
upon the floor — 

The Speaker {pro tempore). Does the gentleman from Kentucky 
yield? 

Mr. Knott. I do not yield. I have asked the gentleman from 
Maine {Mr. Blaine), who seems to be so thoroughly posted, how he 
got his information about that dispatch, and he has declined to tell. 
Now let the matter rest right there, just where it is. 

Mr. McCrary. I would like to ask the chairman of the Committee 
on the Judiciary (Mr. Knott) whether he communicated the fact of 
the receipt by him of that dispatch to any of the republican members 
of the Judiciary Committee ? 

Mr. Knott. I have not ; and there are several of my democratic 
colleagues to whom I have not communicated that fact, and there are 
many of my most intimate personal friends to whom I have not com- 
municated it. To tell the truth about it, after the day that I received 
it, I gave but little, if any, thought at all to it, until the subject was 
brought up here. 

Mr. McCrary. I wish it understood for myself and republican 
colleagues on that committee, that we had no knowledge of the 
receipt of that dispatch. 



" MULLIGAN LETTEE3." 



49 



Mr. McMahon. Will my colleague allow me to ask him a question? 
Mr. Knott. Yes; with pleasure^ 

Mr. McMahon. I would ask the gentleman whether the Committee 
on the Judiciary authorized him to telegraph to Mr. Caldwell, and 
have Mr. Caldwell telegraph a statement in reply; or was it simply 
that he should telegraph where he could be found, in order that his 
personal presence could be secured, and he be subjected to oath and 
cross-examination ? 

Mr. Knott. I was going to speak of that. The order of the Com- 
mittee on the Judiciary, as I understood it, was to telegraph to Mr. 
Caldwell to know if he would come here and give his testimony, 
under oath, as a witness, and not that he should volunteer any infor- 
mation at all upon the subject. 

Mr. Frye. I desire to ask the gentleman a question right here. 
Will the gentleman be kind enough to state to the House what Mr. 
Caldwell said in that dispatch? 

Mr. Knott. Has not your friend already stated it? Do you not 
believe your colleague from Maine? 

Mr. Frye. Xo, sir. [Laughter.] 

Mr. Knott. You do not? Well, I do. [Great laughter.] 

Mr. Frye. In other words, if the gentleman from Kentucky refuses 
to produce that dispatch to the House, I say it seems to be entirely 
supposable that Mr. Blaine has not got the whole of that dispatch, 
and I desire to ask if there is not something else in the dispatch to 
keep it back ? 

Mr. Knott. Xo, sir. Does that satisfy you ? 

Mr. Blaine and others. Bead it, then. 

Mr. Knott. Will gentlemen " possess their souls in patience"? 
Let us hear from the gentleman from Maine where he got his infor- 
mation ; let us know who has violated the law and how he came to be 
the recipient of the secrets of this violater of law. 

Mr. Blaine. If the gentleman is through I desire to call the pre- 
vious question on my resolution. I merely want to test by that 
whether this House is going to unite — 

Mr. Knott. I have not yielded the floor. I want to state to the 
House that this telegraphic dispatch, that was sent to me without any 
solicitation upon my part. I have it still in my possession, but it is at 
my room. Its contents are substantially as stated by the gentleman 
from Maine. Whoever informed him, or however he got his informa- 
tion, I do not know that I can repeat the dispatch in its exact terms. 
It was to the effect — 

Mr. Blaine. I thought you refused to repeat it. 

Mr. Knott. Well, who asked you to put in just at this particular time ? 
[Laughter.] You will have an opportunity to tell where you got your 
information. I was going on to state my recollection of the contents 
of the dispatch. If I had it here I should not object to reading it. 
Whether it came from Mr. Caldwell or not I do not know. The pur- 
port of it was that he had seen Mr. Thomas A. Scott's testimony in 
the Xew York papers ; that it was substantially correct ; that he had 
not let Mr. Blaine have any bonds, and he would send an affidavit to 



50 



3IFv. BLAIXE AND THE 



that effect, but that lie was engaged in railroad enterprises there and 
could not come here to give his testimony without serious pecuniary 
loss. That is substantially what is in the dispatch. 

Xow, I desire to say that it the gentleman had only waited, that 
dispatch would have been presented to the committee to be made use 
of in whatever way the committee may have seen proper. I repeat, 
that from the beginning I have had no desire to injure the gentleman 
from Elaine personally, and especially politically ; none whatever. 
But I have desired, as 1 still desire, that the truth may be told. As 
for myself I had no knowledge of any transaction by the gentleman 
from Elaine inconsistent with the highest personal integrity. I had 
no desire that he should be injured if innocent. I had, however, and 
still have, a desire that whoever maybe guilty of wrong, we shall turn 
on the gas " and let the people see it. 

Mr. Blaine. I now demand the previous question on the resolution, 
because the gentleman declines to furnish the dispatch to the House, 
and I want to see whether this House will justify him in that position. 
It is now admitted by the gentleman that well into the fifth day he 
has deliberately suppressed -that dispatch, and I anderstand that it 
has been suppressed — 

[Cries of " Order."] 

The Speaker {pro tempore'). The gentleman is not in order. 
Mr. Blaine. Why not ? 

The Speaker (pro tempore). The Chair understood the gentleman 
to demand the previous question. 

Mr. Blaine. I rose to do so, but I have an hour before I do so. 
Mr. Springer. Xot at all. 
Mr. Blaine. Why not ? 

Mr. Springer. The gentleman has spoken one hour already. 

Mr. Blaine. I have not spoken one hour in closing the debate. I 
merely want to state this point. I wish to see whether this House will 
approve of the fact that two members at least of the Judiciary Com- 
mittee, the gentleman from Kentucky, (Mr. Knott.) and the gentleman 
from Virginia, (Mr. Hunton.) have known for five days of that 
dispatch — 

Many Members. Eegular order ! 

The Speaker (pro tempore). The gentleman from Maine will sus- 
pend. The Chair understood the gentleman to claim the right to 
occupy another hour before the question is taken on his demand for 
the previous question. 

Mr. Blaine. I would not have any hour afterward. But I do not 
care anything about that. I demand the previous question on the 
resolution. 

Mr. Banning, I move that the resolution be laid on the table. 
Mr. Blaine. Very well: on that I call for the yeas and nays. 
Mr. II /. I trust that will not be done. 
Mr. Banning I withdraw the motion. 
Mr. Blaine. Stick to your motion. 

The question being taken on seconding the demand for the previous 
question, there were — ayes, 101, noes 107. 



" MULLIGAN LETTERS." 



51 



So the previous question was not seconded. 

Mr. Blaine. I move to suspend the rules, and pass to the resolu- 
tion. 

The Speaker (]?ro tempore). The gentleman from Maine is not rec- 
ognized. By the vote just taken, and as is customary, the gentleman 
loses control of the resolution. The Chair recognizes the gentleman 
from Ohio (Mr. Banning). 

Mr. Banning. I move to refer the resolution to the Committee on 
the Judiciary. 

Mr. Blaine. And pending that motion, I move to suspend the 
rules, and adopt the resolution. 

The Speaker (pro tempore). The gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ban- 
ning) has been recognized. 

Mr. Blaine. But my motion comes in as of superior right. 

The Speaker (pro tempore). The gentleman lost the floor when the 
demand for the previous question was not sustained. 

Mr. Blaine. But pending the motion to refer, the motion to sus- 
pend the rules is in order. 

Mr. Banning. I move to refer the resolution to the Committee on 
the Judiciary. 

Mr. Blaine. Pending which, I move to suspend the rules and pass 
the resolution. 

The Speaker (pro tempore). The question is on the motion of the 
gentleman from Ohio to refer the resolution to the Committee on the 
Judiciary. 

Mr. McCrary. Pending that, I move to suspend the rules and 
pass the resolution. I have a right to make the motion. 

Mr. Blaine. By all the precedents. 

Mr. Banning. I call for the regular order of business. 

The Speaker (pro tempore). The Chair understands the gentleman 
moves it as a substitute for the motion to refer. That may be in 
order. 

Mr. McCrary. I demand the yeas and nays. 

Mr. Springer. I rise to a question of order. On Friday last, by 
unanimous consent, an order was made by the House that to-day, 
after the morning hour, — at two o'clock, — the House should proceed 
to the consideration of the bill making appropriation for the payment 
of the Geneva award, to the exclusion of all other business, and 
especially to the exclusion of any motion to suspend the rules. That 
order was made on Friday last, at the suggestion of the gentleman 
from Maine himself. Because otherwise, the making of the Geneva 
award bill a special order -for to-day would be of no avail, as it could 
be interrupted by motions to suspend the rules, which, under the 
rules, are privileged on Monday, after the morning hour. 

Mr. McCrary. That was to take effect at two o'clock to-day, 
and has been waived. 

The Speaker (pro tempore). When unanimous consent was asked 
on Friday last by the gentleman from Xew York (Mr. Lord) to make 
the Geneva award bill a special order for to-day, after the morning 
hour, and after much colloquy, the gentleman from Maine called the 



52 



MR. BLAME AXD THE 



attention of the Chair, and of the House, particularly, to the fact 
that the order to set to-day at two o'clock for that business, would not 
be worth making unless it was accompanied with the provision that it 
was to the exclusion of all motions to suspend the rules. The order 
was made in that way, and runs, by unanimous consent, until that 
bill is disposed of. The Chair is hoav bound to sustain that unani- 
mous arrangement, and with it the point of order raised by the gen- 
tleman from Illinois. Therefore the motion to suspend the rules is 
not in order. 

Mr. Mc C vary. Who has called up the Geneva award bill? It is 
not in the hands of the gentleman from Illinois. I do not think my 
colleague of the Judiciary Committee from Xew York (Mr. Lord) 
will take the responsibility of doing so. 

The Speaker (pro tempore). The Chair will take the responsibility 
of deciding that the point of order having been raised, and attention 
called to the conditions of the special order, he is bound to recognize 
the fact that a motion to suspend the rules is not in order at this time, 
and that, too, by virtue of the order made on Friday last. 

Mr. Kelley. I respectfully call the Speaker's attention to the pur- 
pose for which that order was made. It was that Mr. Scott Lord, of 
Xew York, who is to be absent from the House hereafter, should call 
up that bill to-day and make his speech ; and it was suggested after 
that speech should be concluded we could go on with the general 
business of the House. I do not understand that Mr. Lord avails 
himself of the special object of the order to call up that bill. 

The Speaker (pro tempore). The Chair may assume that to be the 
fact ; but it does not affect the point of order raised by the gentleman 
from Illinois. The Chair has already decided it. Several gentlemen 
to-day have called the Chair's attention to the matter with a view to 
have the rules suspended, and the Chair has stated that he would 
refuse to entertain any motions to suspend the rules. The point of 
order being now raised, the Chair must decide that no motion to sus- 
pend the rules after two o'clock to-day is in order, that being the 
unanimous agreement of the House on Friday last. 

Mr. Kelley. Would it not be in order to suspend the rules after 
Mr. Lord had spoken? 

The Speaker (pro tempore). The gentleman from Pennsylvania is 
not in order. 

Mr. Wilson (of Iowa). I rise to a point of order. 

The Speaker (pro tempore). The gentleman will state his point of 
order. 

Mr. Wilson (of Iowa). My point of order is this: It has been 
understood by the whole House that when this question of personal 
privilege came up, all the previous orders of the House had to give 
way to it. Had it come up on any other day than Monday, the motion 
to suspend the rules would not have been in order on any question 
bearing upon it. 

Tlie Speaker (pro tempore). The Chair did not understand, when 
this privilege came, that any express or implied understanding was 
involved as to the previous orders. 



"MULLIGAN LETTEES." 



53 



Mr. Wilson (of Iowa). Allow me to make my point before you 
decide it. But it is the right of a member rising to a personal 
question here to have that determined independently of any point of 
order, and to call into requisition all the rules of the House to enable 
him to do it ; and to-day, this being Monday, the motion to suspend 
the rules on the resolution connected with that question of privilege I 
claim to be in order. The honorable Chair will take care in ruling 
on this question of personal privilege whether he is going to rule out 
the right of a member to have a hearing upon this floor. 

The Speaker {pro tempore). The Chair has denied no right to be 
heard to the gentleman from Maine. He adheres to his decision, that 
after two o'clock to-day no motion to suspend the rules can be made. 

Mr. McCrary. I rise to appeal to the Chair whether a motion to 
refer the resolution is in order ? 

The Speaker {pro tempore). Undoubtedly it is in order. 

Mr. McCrary. How so, if the special order precludes everything? 
If it cuts off a motion to suspend the rules, does it not also cut off the 
motion to refer ? 

The Speaker {pro tempore) . The gentleman from Maine rose to a 
personal explanation — 
Mr. Blaine. I did not. 

The Speaker {pro tempore). The Chair will first finish his remarks. 

Mr. Jones (of Kentucky). It was the statement of the Chair at the 
time that the gentleman rose to a personal explanation. 

Mr. Blaine. But it was not the statement of the gentleman from 
Maine. 

The Speaker {pro tempore). The gentleman rose to a privileged 
question, and the Chair stated it to the House as one of "personal 
privilege." 

Mr. Blaine. To a question of privilege, which is as different as 
anything can be. 

The Speaker {pro tempore). The gentleman rose to a question of 
personal privilege. 

Mr. Blaine. Of high privilege, which is different from personal 
explanation. 

Mr. Bland. It is now five o'clock, and, as we cannot do anything 
to-day in the way of business, I move the House do now adjourn. 
Several Members. O, no ; withdraw it. 

Mr. Bland. Very well, I withdraw the motion. [Laughter.] 

Mr. McCrary. I rise to a point of order. The Chair has decided, 
when a motion was made to suspend the rules and pass, the resolution, 
that motion was excluded by the fact that the special order for this 
day excluded all other business. My point of order is, that, if the 
special order is of such high privilege as to exclude the motion to sus- 
pend the rules, it is also of such high privilege as to exclude the mo- 
tion to refer this resolution. I now call for the special order. 

Mr. Holman. This resolution is before the House regularly. 

The Speaker {pro tempore). The Chair will state that this resolu- 
tion has come up, as he supposes, properly before the House after the 
question raised by the gentleman from Maine of privilege or personal 



54 ME. BLAINE AND THE "MULLIGAN LETTERS." 



explanation, which ever it was; and the resolution at the end of his 
remarks was before the House without objection ; but not to be dis- 
posed of irregularly. Now the disposition of the resolution is prop- 
erly before the House upon the motion of the gentleman from Ohio 
(Mr. Banning) to refer it. The question is on the motion of the gen- 
tleman from Ohio. In putting that motion no order of the House is 
violated, and no one prejudiced. 

Mr. Page. I call for the yeas and nays. 

The yeas and nays were ordered. The question was taken ; and 
there were, — yeas, 125; nays, 97 ; not voting, 66. So the motion was 
agreed to. 

Mr. Banning moved to reconsider the vote by which the resolution 
was referred to the Committee on the Judiciary ; and also moved that 
the motion to reconsider be laid on the table. 

The latter motion was agreed to. 



/ 



4 3-Y8t9- 



